Every big galaxy we see in the sky has a supermassive black hole at its heart, a dark monster that may be millions or billions of times the mass of the Sun. But did the black hole form first, or the galaxy… or did they grow together?

Astronomers think they may be on to the answer: black holes form first, or at least more quickly, and galaxies grow around them.

A supermassive black hole gobbling down matter at the center of a galaxy. Illustration courtesy NASA/Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital Inc.

It’s been known for a decade or two that big galaxies have giant black holes in their cores. It was a surprise at first, but now it’s expected that they all do. The Milky Way certainly does; our black hole is 4 million times the mass of the Sun, and it sits at the geometric center of the galaxy. Every time we look carefully at big galaxies, we see evidence for such a beast.

The second surprise came when the masses of the black holes were compared to the masses of their host galaxies. No matter how big or how small the galaxy, the mass of the black hole it harbored scaled right along with it (or, more accurately, with the bulge of stars, gas, and dust at the galactic center… sortof like the downtown region of a big city). Galaxies with bigger central bulges have bigger black holes, smaller galaxy bulges means more modest black holes.

This shocked astronomers. Mind you, as scary and big as these galactic black holes are, they are still a tiny fraction of the mass of their host galaxy’s bulge, about one-tenth of a percent, in fact. And that’s just for the bulge; the black hole is only about a thousandth of a percent of the total mass of the entire galaxy. So the black hole is downright dinky compared to the galaxy. How could it possibly affect this gigantic structure around it?

This scaling issue means that somehow, the black hole and the galaxy must "know" about each other; either the black hole affected how big the galaxy got, or the galaxy itself somehow shaped the size of the black hole, or some third characteristic shaped them both. But which was it?

One way to figure out which came first, the galaxy or the black hole, is to look at very distant galaxies. When we look at nearby galaxies we see this scaling between the galaxy and its black hole. But in these cases, the galaxies are old compared to the age of the Universe; we’re looking at 10-12 billion year old galaxies in a 13.7 billion year old Universe. By now, most galaxy and black hole-forming processes have settled down and stopped.

Radio observations of young galaxies find that the black holes form first, or at least grow more quickly than the galaxy. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, SDSS

When they looked at distant, young galaxies, they found that the black holes were more massive relative to their host galaxies than they are today! That’s a big result. It implies very strongly that somehow, the black holes grew first, with the galaxies growing more slowly around them.

This is the first big breakthrough in the galaxy/black hole chicken-and-egg problem. It’s a key finding that will allow astronomers to pursue the myriad questions that we still have… like, do the formations of the galaxies and black holes start at the same time, but black holes grow more quickly? Does the black hole reach its adult size and stop while the galaxy is still growing? And the real killer question: what the heck process is going on that relates the final mass of the black hole to the mass of the galaxy?

We still don’t know. But we have ideas… one is that black holes are messy eaters. As matter falls onto the nascent hole, it forms a flattened disk. This channels a vast wind that blows out from the superheated material in the disk that is just above the black hole’s point of no return. This gale of subatomic particles and energy blows out into the galaxy, affecting how stars form and how material from the proto-galactic cloud falls onto the galaxy itself. Eventually, the black hole runs out of material to feed on, the wind shuts off, and the growth stops… but at the same time, that wind has blown away all the material the galaxy was using to grow and form stars.

So this process would link the growth and eventual size of the black hole to the far larger galaxy around it. The thing is, this is just an idea; we don’t know if it’s right or not! But this new work studying distant galaxies has provided a vital piece of evidence to what’s actually going on. Now astronomers can focus their attention on these galaxies and see if they can tease out more details, more clues so that they can solve one of the biggest outstanding cosmic mysteries today: how, specifically, did galaxies form?

Or, if you prefer: how did we get here? After all, almost every question in astronomy boils down to this one. And every day, we get a bit closer to the answer.

Where is the center of the Milky Way? Let’s say I want to point my new telescope (brought by Santa’s nefarious and drunken elf Steve) at the black hole so I can not see it, where would I point? I mean it’s always in the same sidereal direction, right? I realize I could Google this (and I did try a couple sites) but there’s bunches of knowledge here so why not be efficient…

Phil, this reminds me of some questions that came up last night. We were watching Hubble’s Universe on NatGeo (which had some stuff about black holes, among other things), and the program mentioned some work being done to map out dark matter. They showed this image of what looked like really big clouds.

A couple questions that came up were: what’s between these clouds of dark matter? What keeps them together? Since dark matter can’t be seen, but only its effects, then is it possible that the “empty” spaces between the clouds of dark matter is also filled with dark matter?

@ Jeffersonian: The Galactic Center is located in the Constellation Saggitarius. You can have a favorable view of that region of space during the months of July and August. The zone is best viewed with binocular

@ Ken: I guess that Magellanics clouds have a different story to tell, due the fact they are irregulars. Although our Milky Way have distorted them, there are no evidence of a central black hole inside those tiny satellite galaxies. There are signs of one stellar black hole in one of the Clouds, but not a central one.

Now, galactic black holes were formed in the initial stages of their host galaxies formation… where did the mass come from? Proto-galaxies?

According to “black hole” theory, one has to have mass prior to any “black hole” formation. It seems to this writer, this raises a paradox. According to “black hole” theory, black holes are the result of gravitational collapse of normal stars, big ones sure, but still stars.

This data suggests another re-writing of the “black hole” theory because stars are a product of galaxy formation then the galaxy has to be present for the star to collaspe into a “black hole.” Thus, galaxy formation must come first according to accepted “black hole” theory.

How many re-writes does “black hole” theory get before the overall theory — and it’s just a theory — as all scientific conclusions are — comes into question?

Anaconda, the early universe was a strange place. Assuming that black hole formation started off as just a collapse of a “star” could be a bit off. Direct collapse of A LOT of matter that hadn’t coalesced into a star yet could be another mechanism (WAG). As Dr. Plait observed in a previous blog, there is a lot of weirdness associated with black holes.

@Ken: I imagine the central Black Holes would orbit each other until they merged into one larger Black Hole. If I recall correctly, some colliding galaxies do seem to have a “double nucleus”. I know that galaxy collision models do predict this type of behavior.

I appreciate your response to my comment. I tend to be sceptical of ideas about “the beginning, or “early”, anything that goes beyond observation and measurement of the here and now.

But you didn’t answer my base question: “How many re-writes does “black hole” theory get before the overall theory…comes into question?”

Larian Lequella, you state: “Direct collapse of A LOT of matter that hadn’t coalesced into a star yet could be another mechanism (WAG).”

Okay, but that seems like an ad hoc explanation, certainly, not predictive.

Larian Lequella, you state: “As Dr. Plait observed in a previous blog, there is a lot of weirdness associated with black holes.”

From my perspective any “weirdness” that requires setting aside the known physical laws of the Universe, or digging deeper into abstract theory to explain in ad hoc fashion new observations brings into question the validity of the theory.

My perspective is that of reasonable scepticism in the face of anomalous observation and measurement. Endless “tweaking” of theories suggests a complete re-evaluation of the theory is in order.

Yay for Chris and the NRAO! The HST showing us the scaling relation is cool enough, and I certainly didn’t expect to see data coming down on one side of this chicken and egg problem so soon. The high-redshift universe is full of surprises, and we’ve only just begun to skim the surface of what we can see. This is great and wonderful story of our origins.

And IIRC if several massive holes are involved in a subsequent galaxy merger one may be kicked out. (I assume related to the three body problem instability.)

When I googled it I found that this may also go on to be another test for gravitons AFAIU, as if there is a resulting hole merger it may emit gravitons in one preferred direction and with that kick void the resultant galaxy of massive holes altogether.

Um, diverse black holes are known singularities of GR. You may object to seeing physical consequences of singularities, but then you have to dump for example quantum field theory as well – or perhaps resonances in any sufficiently simplified model.

Black hole “theory”, in the meaning that it’s an isolated subject (which is a dubious description at best, as per above post), is rather figuring out the consequences of known physical theories and further testing them for correctness. (Or, sure, any need for “complete re-evaluation”.)

You have to concretely show that stars can only be formed in a galaxy and that a galaxy can only be formed with a black hole and a black hole can only be formed by from stars. So your chicken-and-egg scenario is not strong enough to challenge our understand of black holes given the evidence so far.

Also, theories are reevaluated as many times as evidence requires. One can’t stop because of an aesthetic sense. Currently

“Endless “tweaking” of theories suggests a complete re-evaluation of the theory is in order.”

What order of magnitude of “tweaking” are we talking about? Tweaking an internal combustion engine to improve it via fuel injection rather than a carbourator isn’t throwing out all automotive engineering is it? Without “tweaking” are we saying “Mission Accomplished! We know everything about this now.”

I appreciate the skepticism, and find no fault in that; however it doesn’t seem to be applied within the framework of the things we already do know. Maybe I misunderstood your statements though (which is entirely possible), but it seems to me you are actually describing the scientific process as others have pointed out.

Nicole presents my statement: “Endless “tweaking” of theories suggests a complete re-evaluation of the theory is in order.”

And Niclole responds: “Or, that’s called science.”

No, endless “tweaking” strongly suggests the theory has been falsified (read, fails to describe the physical reality of the phenomenon) and at that point alternative theories need to be considered.

Torbjorn Larsson, OM:

I have to respectfully disagree with your comment because while your comment is well stated it makes assumptions about theories as if they are facts.

There are a number of theorized properties of “black holes” that violate known physical laws. Of course, “black holes” have never been directly observed, they are creatures of mathematical theory based on the idea that gravity is the only “force” operating in the Universe.

Singularities (the correct term of art) are required to have infinite or near infinite gravitational pull because gravity is a “weak” force to begin with.

Torbjorn Larsson, OM states: “You may object to seeing physical consequences of singularities, but then you have to dump for example quantum field theory as well – or perhaps resonances in any sufficiently simplified model.”

No, there is an alternative theory that is well established with recognized physical properties which has been verified in the laboratory by testing and observation with one of it’s pioneers winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1970, Hannes Alfven.

I agree “black hole” theory is not isolated, it is part and parcel with “big bang” theory and both are wrapped into an exclusive gravitational model.

ND:

Thanks for the link to the SpaceDaily article which has an excellent picture of a Birkeland current with the picture’s caption reading:

“In the authors’ simulations, a gas filament condenses and then fragments to form the first stars. The gas heats as it gets compressed but then becomes cold in the center. The red shading in this image reflects changes in the gas’temperature.”

I agree, stars form by way of Birkeland currents that form a “Z” pinch which compresses the PLASMA, not gas (plasma being electrically charged positive ions and electrons). This phenomenon has been confirmed in the laboratory by experimental testing — electrical properties are known to be scale independient up to 18 orders of magnitude.

ND, I’m only stating astonomy’s stated theory of “black hole” formation. you (and others) are adding to that theory in ad hoc fashion because condradictory evidence was observed.

ND states: “[T]heories are reevaluated as many times as evidence requires.”

Yes, but sometimes the theory doesn’t need to be “tweaked”, it needs to be abandoned and an alternative theory which matches the observations and measurements and has better predictive value needs to replace it.

This new finding, that black holes appear to come first or at least concurrently formed with galaxies, does not necessitate automatic, complete dismissal of any theories or hypotheses of how black holes form. What it does call for is more investigation and a reexamination of what is currently thought about black holes. For example, does this suggest that there are other mechanisms that could be responsible, such as the idea Larian suggested of matter collapsing into a singularity before it forms into a star.

Now, this particular idea is not an ad hoc explanation, but rather a new hypothesis that requires testing. If more evidence is found to support it, then it can be incorporated into “black hole theory”. If not, then it is set aside, and other ideas investigated.

Put it this way, we know that hitting a skin pulled taught over a frame creates a particular sound. For a long time, only through the process of creating a frame, followed by stretching and fastening the skin, followed by striking it with a stick could we get that sound. It is impossible to get that sound before the drum is created. Then we discover that there exists this electronic device that can produce the exact same sound, without the need of creating a frame, stretching a skin or hitting it with a stick. Does this mean that the idea that drum->skin->strike creates that sound is suddently completely wrong? No. This new evidence just expands on the knowledge of how that sound can be created.

I’m still not seeing the chicken-egg paradox that was the point of your first post. This has to do with the formation of galaxies and not stars themselves. The monkey wrench in all this that you seem to point to is that you can not have stars without galaxies. And thus the idea of black holes falls apart. Stars could have preceded the formation of black holes and galaxies or blacks holes could have been created by not going through the step of star formation in the early universe.

“because stars are a product of galaxy formation”

Which physical laws are being violated?

Also, what are you scientific qualifications? Why are you so interested in plasma cosmology?

I was struck with all the assumptions that were stated as fact in the article.

Even though little is known about their nature [dark matter], evidence for the presence of dark matter is overwhelming, from observations of galaxies, to clusters of galaxies, to the Universe as a whole.”

“[O]verwhelming”???

And:

Also, this quote from the article is highly problematic: “The discovery takes scientists a step further to determining the nature of dark matter, which remains a mystery since it was first discovered more than 70 years ago.”

“[D]iscovered”???

Don’t they mean theorized.

And “dark matter” was only theorized because otherwise the gravitational model couldn’t hold a galaxy together because the observed matter in a galaxy didn’t have the required gravitational pull to hold a galaxy together considering its rotational speed (kinda like why “black holes” were resurrected in the ’60’s after being discarded for 30 years).

In other words, a substance (“dark matter”) was theorized to save a theory that had been clearly falsified by its own terms and constraints.

And:

“After the Big Bang, the universe was mostly ‘smooth’, with just small ripples in the matter density. These ripples grew larger due to the gravitational forces acting on the dark matter particles contained in them.” The problem, here, is that theory is being stated as fact.

And:

“For their research, the team from Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology carried out sophisticated computer simulations of the formation of these early stars with accepted scientific models of so-called ‘cold’ as well as ‘warm’ dark matter.”

This is theory pushing the envelope into pure speculation.

Todd W.:

You are sincere and I appreciate your good faith.

But your statement: “Now, this particular idea is not an ad hoc explanation, but rather a new hypothesis that requires testing.”

Why is it not ad hoc?

Ad hoc, in this instance, means coming up with an addendum to a theory because the theory failed to predict or match observation and measurement.

I appreciate Larian’s creativity, but it’s nothing more than “broken field” running in a football game.

Science won’t get closer to a correct understanding of phenomenon until it also considers the possibility it is wrong. This observation directly contradicts “black hole” theory. Acknowledging that reality is the first step to a better understading ot natural phenomenon.

A scientist committed to the empirical scientific method is committed to observation and measurement, not any particular theory, in fact, clinging to a theory falsified by observation and measurement is the tell-tale sign of a discipline in drift and disarray.

Todd W., I have to say your analogy is completely unconvincing because you assume science knows there are “black holes” when it’s just a theory. “Skin”, “frame”, and “sound” are tangible and concrete — “black holes” are theory based on abstract mathematical formula. The two are not comparable so the analogy fails in my opinion.

@BA “This channels a vast wind that blows out from the superheated material in the disk that is just above the black hole’s point of no return. This gale of subatomic particles and energy blows out into the galaxy, affecting how stars form and how material from the proto-galactic cloud falls onto the galaxy itself.”

Is this the same thing as the bidirectional jets that are seen in many quasars and radio galaxies, or is this some type of particle/energy flow within the plane of the disk (i.e., perpendicular to the jets)?

Also, does the axis for the black hole jets have to be the same as the rotational axis of the black hole or are they completely uncorrelated? Does the rotational axis of the Milky Way equal the rotational axis of material in the disk surrounding the central black hole or are they different? So there are many, many questions relating to black holes and how they relate to their galaxy.

@Anaconda “Thus, galaxy formation must come first according to accepted “black hole” theory.”

Even according to standard models of stellar evolution and the Big Bang Theory this is not true. A galaxy is a collection of stars – millions to billions of them. But at some point in time in the early universe there were no stars at all. Some place in the universe then, there was a slight increase in density in the hydrogen gas permeating the universe, and the first star collapsed out of the medium. Assuming it was a massive star, greater than 10 solar masses, it would have blown its stack in about 10 million years and the first supernova would have happened in the universe and the first black hole would have formed. This might have happened before the second star formed in the universe. So it’s easy to see how black holes can form before large aggregations of stars (i.e., galaxies) arrive on the scene.

Bear with me and dumb down your explanation appropriately, I studied liberal arts. I’ve never been able to wrap my head around why we can see galaxies that are 10 billion light years away if the universe is only 13 billion years old.

If the light originated when the universe was 3 billion years old doesn’t that mean that something had to travel faster than the speed of light to get so far away in such a short time? Obviously I’m missing something here because traveling faster than light is allegedly impossible, but whenever I try to picture it in my head, I can’t. It’s like a giant nightmare version of the “two trains leave New York at 8am going in opposite directions” problem.

If anyone can offer an “idiot’s explanation” of what I’m not getting here, I’d appreciate it greatly.

Wow! So the amount of matter spinning around a black hole is proportional to its mass/gravitational pull. And newer black holes haven’t had time to attract as much matter as older ones. Who would have ever guessed that? What an amazing discovery!

Next you’ll be telling me that larger magnets can pick up heavier metal thingys.

Berry does some absolutely beautiful work.
The disturbance pattern in this reminds me of the polar pattern on Saturn… after watching a certain “science” program last night on a popular cable channel, I’d have to wonder if Saturn has a black hole at its pole!

Hmm. . . . The statement that the black hole mass correlates with the mass of the parent galaxy seems to contradict something I recall stated on this blog before – namely that the Milky Way’s black hole was much smaller than that of our neighbouring Andromeda galaxy (was it 4 million vs 20 billion suns?) Yet is was recently posted that the Milky Way and Andromeda have close to the same mass (even before when it was thought that Andromeda was bigger, it was only by about 50% at most). Does this mean that Andromeda’s central bulge is really that many orders of magnitude bigger than the Milky Way’s? (And does this mean that the Milky Way therefore has that much bigger a disk?)

I can see why black holes would come first. Considering the massive gravitational power of a black hole, it would seem logical that it would start pulling gas and stars and planets and once it got big enough, the inner areas would pull objects to make outer areas and slowly there would be enough gas and matter built up that a galaxy would form and gravity would rule supreme.

sdrDusty:
History, as has been previously pointed out,is not science,,,it’s the memory and opinions of the winners. Saturn Probably has no black hole at its pole, because if it did, there would be no Saturn,,,just a big darkness.

Black holes(according to Prof Hawking) can also be formed by explosive compaction of matter. The big bang may have produced a lot of micro black holes, which promptly evaporated. The energy curve for any evaporating black hole is identical to every other evaporating black hole. Its just that the bigger they are, the longer they take to evaporate.

An evaporating black hole in a dense gaseous medium would have the same turbulence/compressive effect on that gas as an exploding star, though perhaps somewhat less(ok, probably a LOT less)., but an effect it will have. Possibly evaporating micro black holes had as significant an effect in the early formation of stars as any other mechanism, including hypothetical “electrical space currents”.

According to another theory of matter creation, black holes in any galaxy created nearly all the matter particles that condensed into stars within that galaxy, therefore black holes necessarily would have to precede the galaxy of stars. Accordingly, in the subject observations they would not be looking at the beginnings of the universe but instead would be looking at an earlier epoch that looks surprisingly similar to our own times. This, according to this alternative theory, would be because the universe is much older than the Big Bang theory would allow, therefore galaxies of those times would be the same as today’s galaxies with its radiation altered by many intervening clouds of matter.

ND states: “[Anaconda] I’m still not seeing the chicken-egg paradox that was the point of your first post. This has to do with the formation of galaxies and not stars themselves.”

According to the gravitational model stars are a product of galaxy formation, and “black holes” are a product of collasped massive stars. In order for “black holes” to be formed independent of stars some other process would have to happen. That is the contradiction, and obviously it’s recognized in the astronomy community because this blog’s author first used the “chicken and the egg” phrase. I simply built on what was already in the post.

ND states: “Stars could have preceded the formation of black holes and galaxies or blacks holes could have been created by not going through the step of star formation in the early universe.”

Exactly my point — conventional astronomical science (gravitational model) doesn’t have a good grip on any of this because it’s too wedded to one theory that has lead astronomers to increasingly react to new observations with the passive tense, “We were surprised by the observation.”

I submitt it’s problematic to justify theories based on what could have happened in the “early universe.”

Well, that’s a reasonable question, infinite or near infinite density of “black holes” seems to exceed any density of observed matter; in atomic physics, it is recognized as the “island of stability” that neutrons can’t stay packed together. But to be reasonable “black hole” theory doesn’t offend physical laws as much it’s theoretical forebear, the “big bang.”

NB asks: “[W]hat are you scientific qualifications? Why are you so interested in plasma cosmology?”

I’m not a scientist, rather a scientfic observer, an “enthusiast” would be a fair characterization. I state the Plasma Cosmology theory because based on my research and study, Plasma Cosmology matches the observations and measurements best. There are too many paradoxes that the gravitational model doesn’t explain and it relies on too many “unobserved” theoretical assumptions.

Larian Lequella:

You would be right if the “tweaking” was analogous to “tuning up” your car’s engine. This post points out a complete contradiction to the “black hole” theory. The ad hoc addendums are pure speculation not based on observation or measurement, but rather a desire to preserve a theory.

LL states: “I appreciate the skepticism, and find no fault in that; however it doesn’t seem to be applied within the framework of the things we already do know.”

What do we already know?

LL states: “…but it seems to me you are actually describing the scientific process as others have pointed out.”

I agree, that is the point of weakness with the gravitational model and all it’s corollary theories, “big bang”, “black holes”, “dark matter”, “strange matter” quarks and so on. It’s not based on the empirical scientific method, rather it is based on one Man’s conception of reality and he developed this theory based on ‘thought’ experiments.

Real science is based on observation and measurement. And if those observations and measurements can’t be made then it refrains from speculation, although, it’s always striving to make observations and measurements which then allows it to make hypothesis, and if enough additional observations and measurments are made which confirm the hypothesis then and only then can one call an idea about the physical universe a theory.

It is my contention that conventional astronomy has claimed as theory what really is only hypothesis, and some of it, “dark matter” for example, doesn’t even amount to hypothesis, but rather speculation to preserve a falsified theory.

My interest is in the current best available science. The gravitational model is not the current best available science — Plasma Cosmology is.

I’m still not convinced. The original posting talks about galaxies and black holes. What you, as you say, “built on what was already in the post” is that stars could not precede the formation of a galaxy. Unless I’m reading it wrong, and people please correct me, the article I posted talks about how the first stars could have formed, before galaxies came to be.

You seem so sure about your statement on science, gravitation and the plasma cosmology when you yourself do not possess any scientific background. Have you participated in any research? Applied the scientific method?

I’ve seen quite a few people assert that scientists are wrong about this or that based on misunderstandings and overly simplistic views of theories and what they actually say. In other words they do not fully understand the subject they’re talking about. So you will excuse me if I don’t take you seriously simply by your assertions.

To say that the current scientific understanding of galaxy formation, gravitation and black holes is wrong and that the scientific method has not been applied correctly is a bold statement to make, specially against a those who work and breath science. If the current scientific understanding is wrong and plasma cosmology is right, then I would suggest you outline exactly how so on website. You said you’ve researched this and found the evidence against black holes. It would be very interesting to outline your findings on a website and invite professional astronomers and other scientists to debate it’s merits.

# Eric TF Bat Says:
Am I the only one who wonders why it took so long for the Pierson’s Puppeteers to learn about this? Couldn’t they just read the old archives of this blog from back in the 21st century?
(I wonder how many of your readers get THAT reference without looking it up…?)

This is my field, and this area of research is really active, and will be featured in a Symposium of the International Astronomical Union meeting this August in Rio de Janeiro. Some details are at: http://www.stsci.edu/institute/conference/iau267

Evolution of Galaxies and Central Black Holes: Feeding and Feedback

10-14 August 2009
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Research over the last decade has revealed definitively (1) that the fundamental power source in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is gravitational accretion onto supermassive (greater than one million solar masses) black holes at the centers of galaxies, (2) that supermassive black holes lie at the centers of virtually all spheroidal systems, and (3) that there are strong empirical correlations between properties of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that nuclear activity must play an important role in the formation and evolution of galaxies: far from being unusual, exotic anomalies in a relatively quiescent universe, it is now widely recognized that nuclear activity is an important ingredient in the evolution of galaxies. Also over the last decade, the masses of black holes have become measurable through methods such as modeling of stellar and gas dynamics and reverberation mapping, and these anchor scaling relationships that permit estimates of black hole masses from quasar spectroscopic properties alone. With the advent of techniques for accurately estimating AGN black hole masses, even at large redshifts, and the availability of large numbers of quasars at all redshifts from deep surveys with Chandra, XMM-Newton, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the field has undergone transformational change. A major focus in extragalactic astronomy and cosmology has become observational and theoretical investigation of nuclear activity in the larger context of the galactic environment, which we can describe in terms of feeding and feedback.

That’s the start of the description of the symposium, anyway.

Great job making this understandable Phil. We’ve got a lot of jargon and a lot of steps to get across to convey why this is so interesting and important.

firemancarl, you may think so, but these supermassive black holes as Phil points out are really tiny compared to the surrounding galaxies. They really only dominate the gravity within the central part of the galaxies, not beyond. It would be like you carrying around your car with you — THAT doesn’t happen. It’s the other way around — you are carried in your car. The black holes are really, really big, but not anywhere close enough to directly pull in the rest of the galaxies that they live within.

“It’s not based on the empirical scientific method, rather it is based on one Man’s conception of reality and he developed this theory based on ‘thought’ experiments.”

Are you referring to Einstein and GR? If you are, I may tell you that GPS wouldn’t work correctly if we wouldn’t have GR. Mercurys (strange) movements around the sun are described very precisely by GR, as is gravitational redshift. All three are direct proofs that GR works (probably just in a weak gravitational field, but there is some evidence, that it also works in a double-pulsar system which is quite a strong gravitational field – follow the link in my name to a paper about it (Kramer et al. (2006)).
Btw: Even SR was based on “thought experiments” and the assumption that c is a limit to moving objects. And SR is tested even more accurate than GR. So a quite well tested GR is based upon a very precisely tested SR. They are both quite a good explanation about what’s going on!

“eat one’s cake and have it too” makes more sense to me. You can have the cake and then eat it but to eat the cake and still have one is the intended meaning of the phrase, so it makes more sense to me to place eating before having. But then again english is not my first language. As victor borge said, it’s your language I’m just trying to use it.

An emoton is an elementary particle. Once, they were thought not to exist.
An emoton can only be seen indirectly by its effect on other elementary particles
(much like black holes).
String theorists have attempted to make models of the interaction of the emoton
between it and other elementary particles. Again, like black holes,
some models have shown that an emoton’s purpose is to act as a singularity
in which quantum mechanics can build upon the universe.
Evidence seems to prove this model correct. An emoton’s binding force is more
on the order of the weaker gravitational force than the strong nuclear force.

Scientists believe that this is the reason for a broken heart.
The emotons react with other emotons, sharing the emotional load between two lovers.
When the lover is gone, suddenly the emotons have to carry all the load,
making your heart heavy until it collapses like a star.

It should also be pointed out that a black hole COULD be created by simply accelerating a mass to a velocity high enough that the mass increase formula(M=Mo/sqrt(1-V^2/C^2)), approaches infinity and an event horizon must therefore form around the accelerated mass.
Thus we have a black hole that only exists as long as its velocity is undiminished.
I wonder what we’d see if the “velocity dependent black hole” slowed down,,,would the black hole evaporate instantaneously?(probably not). Now, depending upon the original rest mass, that could result in a BIG bang,,,

@Anaconda “According to the gravitational model stars are a product of galaxy formation”

If one defines galaxy as a massive aggregation of stars, and if one asserts that stars require a galaxy in order to form, then of course there is your “chicken and egg” conundrum. How does the first star form? It can’t because there is no galaxy containing other stars. Why then do stars exist? It seems like a paradox.

Of course, the paradox collapses completely if one replaces the word galaxy with proto-galaxy:

A star can only form in a proto-galaxy.

(Assuming the definition of proto-galaxy is something like the following: a large mass of hydrogen gas with a diameter from 10,000 ly to 1,000,000 ly.)

Just curious, how does your Plasma Universe theory resolve this particular alleged paradox?

@amphiox “The statement that the black hole mass correlates with the mass of the parent galaxy seems to contradict something I recall stated on this blog before – namely that the Milky Way’s black hole was much smaller than that of our neighbouring Andromeda galaxy (was it 4 million vs 20 billion suns?)”

Yes, that bothered me too. Glad someone else noticed it.

So we have M-bh = F * M-gal

where M-bh is the mass of the central galactic black hole, F is the scaling factor, and M-gal is the mass of the entire galaxy.

So for the Milky Way we have M-bh = 4 million solar masses and M-gal = 870 billion solar masses (1.5 times previous estimate of 580 billion solar masses). Therefore F = 4.6E-6.

“The STIS observations of Andromeda are so precise that astronomers have eliminated all other possibilities for what the central, dark object could be. They also calculated that the black hole’s mass is 140 million Suns, which is three times more massive than once thought.”

The black hole at the core of M33 (the Triangulum Galaxy) is a lightweight, with a mass roughly 1,500 times the mass of the Sun. The galaxy’s spiral arms emerge from its core at a very loose angle of 42°.
Courtesy Travis Rector / M. Hanna / NOAO / AURA / NSF.

For several years astronomers have believed that the more massive a galaxy’s central black hole, the larger and more massive the bulge of stars at the core will always be. But now it turns out that this rule, an excellent fit in most cases, doesn’t apply in all. A recent survey of 32 flat, bulgeless galaxies by the Spitzer Space Telescope showed hefty black holes in seven of them, throwing the theory into question.

Yesterday at the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, a team led by Marc Seigar (University of Arkansas at Little Rock) proposed another method of estimating the mass of black holes at spiral galaxy cores: the larger the central black hole, the tighter the galaxy winds its spiral arms around itself.

Seigar’s group looked at images of 27 nearby spirals for which the mass of each central supermassive black hole is already known by other means. They noted that galaxies with the biggest black holes have tight spiral arms, emerging from the central bulge at angles of about 7°. But galaxies hosting smaller central black holes have looser spiral arms, with angles of up to 43° where the arms and the central bulge meet.

The next step is to expand this study to larger numbers and to look beyond the local region by examining galaxies at cosmological distances. Seigar expects that really remote galaxies, seen when the universe was significantly younger, contain smaller supermassive black holes than what we see in closer locales.

He went on to speculate that the main factor in determining the mass of a supermassive central black hole could well be the amount of dark matter concentrated in the galaxy. But at the moment he’s more interested in ensuring that the simple relationship between spiral arms and black hole mass doesn’t change as he studies galaxies up to 5 billion light-years away.

Marc Seigar (University of Arkansas at Little Rock) proposed another method of estimating the mass of black holes at spiral galaxy cores: the larger the central black hole, the tighter the galaxy winds its spiral arms around itself.

But you can’t trust this Marc Seigar guy. All he’s doing is tweaking something to match observations. The only acceptable solution is to abandon all thoughts that there could be a relationship between supermassive black holes and galaxy formation for a new theory that has a cooler name and says nothing on the subject.

@Jose “All he’s doing is tweaking something to match observations. The only acceptable solution is to abandon all thoughts that there could be a relationship between supermassive black holes and galaxy formation for a new theory that has a cooler name and says nothing on the subject.”

ROFLMAO.

Yes, I’ve got just the name: Cryostatic Radiative Adiabatic Plasma theory. CRAP will solve all these paradoxes generated by this backward “black hole” theory that the BA keeps harping on.

Do irregular galaxies also have black holes at their center? Do they have a center? It seems so plausible that any galaxy that is circular, i.e.spirals, etc., because their centers are vortexes (vortices?), have black holes at their center, but irregulars…?
Can someone answer?

where M-bh is the mass of the central galactic black hole, F is the scaling factor, and M-gal is the mass of the entire galaxy.”

There is the false point. The BH-mass has nothing to do with the mass of the entire galaxy but with the mass of the BULGE, the center of the galaxy if you will. Just read Phil’s post again, I think he mentioned that!
And although the mass of the MW seems to have grown lately, the mass of the buldge has not necessarily grown. I guess we can “add” that mass to the “dark halo” and wouldn’t do a too big mistake.

@ jeff

I think the answer to your question is not that easy. First we have different kind of irregulars. Those like the Magellanic Clouds that looked always like they do today and hence have ever been irregulars. I must admit that I don’t know if such guys have a SMBH at their “core”. On the other hand we have irregulars like the Antenna galaxy which is actually a merger of two former spirals. Thus there is at least one SMBH at the center (or close to the center) of the new formed galaxy – at least one, because both galaxies actually had one and probably they haven’t merged yet to form an even bigger SMBH.

ND states: “Unless I’m reading it wrong, and people please correct me, the article I posted talks about how the first stars could have formed, before galaxies came to be.”

ND, the article you cited and linked makes several misstatements which I quoted and pointed out. “Dark matter” was not discovered “70 years ago, it was theorized 70 years ago. Big difference. Strike one against your article. There certainly is NOT “overwhelming” evidence for the existence of “dark matter” that’s why it is still vigorously searched for today. Strike two against your article.

Perhaps, you are not used to people disagreeing with your core assumptions (the existence of “black holes”), because you completely ignore my second set of comments about the linked article.

So, I will restate the relevant part of my comment, again:

“And “dark matter” was only theorized because otherwise the gravitational model couldn’t hold a galaxy together because the observed matter in a galaxy didn’t have the required gravitational pull to hold a galaxy together considering its rotational speed (kinda like why “black holes” were resurrected in the ’60’s after being discarded for 30 years). In other words, a substance (”dark matter”) was theorized to save a theory that had been clearly falsified by its own terms and constraints.”

Here is a quote from the cited and linked article:

“For their research, the team from Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology carried out sophisticated computer simulations of the formation of these early stars with accepted scientific models of so-called ‘cold’ as well as ‘warm’ dark matter.”

An “unseen”, “undetected”, “theorized” object, “dark matter” with unknown properties can’t be fed into a computer program and provide useful data about ANYTHING — it’s nothing but useless speculation cloaked in the psuedo-respectability that a computer program spit it out. Strike three against your article.

So, your defense of “black holes” rests on speculation dressed up in a computer simulation of a particle, “dark matter”, that has never been observed and it’s properties are unknown? If you are, then you really don’t understand what the empirical scientific method is. It’s based on actual observation and measurement, not computer simulations based on speculation fed into the computer program.

NB asks: “Have you participated in any research? Applied the scientific method?”

I have conducted my personal research, and in the course of that research, I have applied the scientific method.

But what I think you’re driving at is this: Have I engaged in the actual observation, measurement, and interpretation of my own data? No, I haven’t, but I can apply reason and be objective about data collected by others — I have no axe to grind or agenda. Matching theory and reality is all I care about.

ND states: “So you will excuse me if I don’t take you seriously simply by your assertions.”

No, I don’t mind at all.

I only request you keep an open-mind, and at the same time apply reasonable scepticism — when theories or predictions don’t match observation and measurement, a scientific observer should cast a wider net than the comfort of accepted theory.

The three NASA reports demonstrate electric currents (electrons and positive ions, charged particles) that flow from the Sun to the Earth, and since the Sun is the closet star, it provides the best opportunity for detailed observation and measurement of how stars work.

So far, electromagnetic properties are the predominate interaction between the Sun and the Earth. That seems to be the point where Man starts his observation and measurement of the Cosmos.

ND states: “If the current scientific understanding is wrong and plasma cosmology is right, then I would suggest you outline exactly how so on website.”

I could and I have, but there are plenty of websites for you to explore if you want to investigate Plasma Cosmology. Plasma Cosmology doesn’t rise or fall on what I write or don’t write.

But if you are interested here is a link to an excellent introduction to Plasma Cosmology theory:

The author is Don Scott an electrical engineer by training and is published in the field of Plasma Cosmology. I should note that IEEE ((Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.) is the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology and it recognizes the study of Plasma Cosmology.

The resources are available, the choice is yours to decide.

ND states: “You said you’ve researched this and found the evidence against black holes. It would be very interesting to outline your findings on a website and invite professional astronomers and other scientists to debate it’s merits.”

Again, there are plenty of others who have outlined the problems with “black holes”. “Black holes'” reality won’t be effected by my writing or non-writing one iota.

And if you are a committed scientist or scientific observer, you already know the pardoxes or “black holes” or at least you should, you should.

ND, have you investigated the paradoxes of “black holes”?

Have you given serious consideration to falsifying “black hole” theory?

Every scientist or scientific observer if they are committed to the empirical scientific method must attempt to falsify their own theories.

Interestingly I have read only about the third article you linked to (it was at newscientist.com), the other ones were new to me. And they seem strange. And they are rising questions. Especially one:
If the particles are channeled into the earth atmosphere/magnetosphere right above the equator, shouldn’t we see at least some “polar lights” down there?
And about that third article: First of all I think it is quite understandable by “mainstream” physics. But I have something about it what bothers me:

“(For experts: The team believes the electrons were recaptured by some combination of radiative recombination and charge exchange.) ”

What? Charge exchange? Between electrons and protons, both charged with the unity-charge? I accept radiative recombination – an electron jumps down to the ground state and emits UV-light. But I don’t think that there will be any charge exchange – hence that “for experts”-statement is wrong, or I don’t understand anything.

Btw. I haven’t done any calculations, but in my understanding I don’t need any magnetic flux tubes for charged particles to penetrate the magnetosphere, “just come in and dance around the field lines” if I may say so . And another way how they actually can come in is quite well understood: via reconnection of magnetic field lines – what happens on the night-side of the earth (yes, I know, those tubes are supposed to be on the day-side).

Oh, but I have another question to you, a bit more general:

I think you have heared about gravitational lenses. With those we can check the mass of a galaxy without measuring the rotation of it. What does Plasma Cosmology say about them?
With gravitational lenses it is also possible to see where the center of mass is located. And it has been found that a center of mass is located between two galaxies which had a collision recently – it was suggested that the Dark Matter has been seperated from the galaxys (I guess it was that way – Phil has written about it somewhere on this blog ).

P.S.: Damn, it’s getting late. Sorry if my writings aren’t as clear as they should be. And who ever finds a mistake, you can keep it

@DrFlimmer “There is the false point. The BH-mass has nothing to do with the mass of the entire galaxy but with the mass of the BULGE, the center of the galaxy if you will. Just read Phil’s post again, I think he mentioned that!”

How did they measure the mass of the galactic bulge? I’d like to see some data please.

Even assuming that we’re just talking about the bulge and not the entire galaxy I’m still skeptical. Let’s take the ratio of the mass of the central black hole in the Andromeda galaxy versus the Milky Way:

140 million / 4 million = 35

In order for there to be a linear scaling relationship then the mass of the central bulge in Andromeda versus the Milky Way must be 35:1. Let’s assume that the average density of the bulge is roughly the same for the two galaxies. That means the ratio of volumes of the bulges is 35:1 which means the ratio of diameters of the bulges is 3.3:1. That means the diameter of the bulge in the Andromeda galaxy is 3.3 times what it is in the Milky Way.

Now, the Milky Way galaxy has a central bulge roughly 6,000 light-years in radius. The Andromeda bulge would have to be 20,000 light-years in radius, which is 40 percent of the way from the center to the edge of the bright visible disk in most astronomical photos of the galaxy. It’s obvious from looking at any picture of M31 that the bulge doesn’t extend 40 percent of the way to the edge. The only way to preserve this constant scaling factor is to assume that the density of the Andromeda bulge is ~35 times the density of the Milky Way bulge, which doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.

So the constant scaling factor is hosed whether you look at the entire galaxy or just the galactic bulge.

I just checked the NASA-ADS page and searched for “bulge black hole mass” and it showed up quite a lot papers. I linked to one (click on my name) which seems interesting (Häring, Rix (2004)). They found that the scaling is indeed NOT linear (I would have been quite surprised if it had been) but instead a power law which makes some sense to me. The scaling is (relying on that paper):

Yeah, a power law with an exponent of 1.12 is almost linear. The ratio of M-bulge should be the 0.89th power of the ratio of M-bh. So for Andromeda:Milky Way the M-bulge ratio should be 23.7, bulge diameter ratio is 2.9 instead of 3.3 given earlier.

So central bulge of Andromeda should be ~17,500 ly or 35 percent of the distance from center to edge, instead of 40 percent computed earlier. So sorry, it still doesn’t fly comparing Milky Way to Andromeda. Maybe they are only looking at galaxies of the same spiral classification, say Sa to Sa, Sb to Sb, etc. or something like that? I’m not too convinced of their results. Maybe Andromeda/Milky Way is an anomaly and all the other galaxies in the universe behave correctly but I kind of doubt it.

No one can help? I guess I was a little unclear about one aspect of my question. Assuming, for example, that the big bang’s singularity was located at the same point in space where earth is now, for us to see 10 billion year old galaxies on both sides of the earth seems to imply that each galaxy had to travel 10 billion light years in 3 billion years. And since the big bang’s singularity was most likely located somewhere else in space, it seems like one of the galaxies in question would have to travel even faster. Like I said, I know I’m missing something, I just can’t figure out what it is…

DrFlimmer asks: “If the particles are channeled into the earth atmosphere/magnetosphere right above the equator, shouldn’t we see at least some “polar lights” down there?”

According to the NASA report: “He told his colleagues that the cylindrical portals tend to form above Earth’s equator and then roll over Earth’s winter pole. In December, FTEs roll over the north pole; in July they roll over the south pole.”

Taking the report at face value, it seems that while the “portals” form over the equator they roll in toward the winter pole, which possibly means they don’t interact with the Earth’s magnetosphere until reaching the winter polar region. That might explain why aurora tend to start at the winter pole and spread toward the equator depending on the strength of the Birkeland (electric) current (there are pictures from space that capture the occurence of auroras at both poles simultaneously).

DrFlimmer states: “I haven’t done any calculations, but in my understanding I don’t need any magnetic flux tubes for charged particles to penetrate the magnetosphere, “just come in and dance around the field lines” if I may say so.”

I would agree, the general solar wind (electric flow) does penetrate the magnetosphere, the Birkeland currents (what NASA calls ‘flux transfer event’) are more concentrated because of the high electric current which generates a strong magnetic field (electric current is the only known cause of magnetic fields) which compresses the electric current into a concentrated interwined filament. So there is the more diffuse solar wind and also the more focussed Birkeland currents.

Yes, I have heard about them — Plasma Cosmology doesn’t accept that the phenomena exists, I’m not sure about that question one way or the other. Plasma Cosmology doesn’t accept space-time warping by gravity — Plasma Cosmology maintains time is not warped by gravity. I agree with that theory, but gravity may bend light without any time distortion. Whether light is bent by gravitational attraction, in my opinion needs more observation and measurement. At this time, I can’t rule out gravity bending light.

DrFlimmer, you asked me some general questions about Plasma Cosmology, so I thought it might be worthwhile to link two articles that state and explain Plasma Cosmology’s theory on what is at the center of galaxies (as opposed to “black holes”) and why:

Not only is c an upper limit for matter (and not spacetime) as José mentioned, you also made an assumption that is not accurate:

“Assuming, for example, that the big bang’s singularity was located at the same point in space where earth is now”

What I will try to tell you now is a little hard to understand and probably I will fail to tell it precisly, but let’s give it a shot:

The big bang singularity was no point “somewhere” in space(time). It was the creation of space itself. This sounds crazy, indeed, but “before” the big bang there was literally nothing and after the big bang there was space (and everything in it). Thus the big bang happend “everywhere and nowhere” – there is no “center” of the universe where it all started. If that would be the case we would have a special place in space what would violate the principle of relativity that EVERY point in space is equal – no point is more special than another one.
So. If we look up and see galaxies rushing away from us in every direction you can “transform” yourself in every other galaxy and you would see perfectly the same: every galaxy would be rushing away from you.
This is because you can only compare motions relative to each other. And you can always say that your current speed is zero and everything else is moving (as long as you are sitting in an initial frame). But someone somewhere else can say the same. He can say that he is at rest while you are moving – otherwise you would need a “resting” space where everything can be compared to. But the many and carful checks of SR tell us that this is not the case.

Well, indeed, something is strange. But if I have to choose which “galaxy” is weird, I choose the Milky Way, because our SMBH is somehow very light-weight compared to others and our galaxy is supposed to be big (and even more massive by now). And if you check the paper I linked to in my previous post you can see that the MW is quite below the line and Andromeda is quite on the line (if I have identified them correctly).

But… I guess it is somehow like with everything in astronomy. Measurements are very difficult. Thus the error bars are quite big. I always make a little joke about astronomers that they will always find a linear relation in a plot of random points .

I know someone directly working on the filed of the atmosphere/magnetosphere and its interactions. It will be interesting what he has to say

But about the gravitational lenses I can tell you that we have found MANY. And they are always in agreement with GR (as is GPS, Mercury, etc).
Just follow the link in my name to a beautiful picture of the Hubble Telescope. All those stretched structures are backgriund galaxys who’s light was distorted by the gravitation of the foreground cluster.
I think you can search this blog for gravitional lenses, too. Phil has mentioned some in the past.
So, they are real and they behave perfectly according to GR.

Halton Arp would disagree with your assessment that General Relativity explains gravitational redshift.

The problem with gravitational lensing is that Arp’s work with quasars contradicts the idea that “redshift” accurately measures distance and this then throws off much, if not all of the gravitational lesning assumptions.

There are too many assumptions in today’s astrophysics that would not be tolerated in any other branch of science.

In regards to gravitational lensing:

“Item: Gravitational lensing is solely a phenomenon of mass, but galaxies are made of plasma. The primary quality of plasma is charge—electricity—and the effects of electricity overshadow the effects of mass 99 to 1. Energetic phenomena that require 96% dark matter, dark energy and black holes to power with mass require only 4% plasma—the quantity actually observed.”

On Earth, electrically neutral bodies predominate: Solid, liquid, neutral gas — this has understandably shaped Man’s frame of reference, but in space, plasma (electrcally charged bodies, electrons and positive ions) is the predominate form of matter.

Electrical currents are an inherent part of plasma dynamics. This is the congenital point of failure for General Relativity, it simply omits any consideration of plasma dynamics in space. Again, at the time General Relativity was formulated, the ubiquitous nature of plasma in space was unknown, so omitting reference to plasma and electrodynamics was understandable, but science knows better, today.

Conventional astrophysics acknowledges magnetic fields in space, but omits the scientifically proven fact that only electric current produces magnetic fields (this has been experimentally tested and demonstrated in the laboratory).

In space, as opposed to Earth, plasma is the fundamental state of nature.

To omit this fact, and the mounting observations and measurements (the series of NASA reports on interaction between the Sun and the Earth as example, but not limited to) leaves astrophysics relying on an essentailly 19th century theory.

The problem with a theory dominated by abstract mathematical equations that omit a fundamental state of nature (plasma) and its inherent dynamics (electric currents) is legion. But one problem is that the mathematician’s assumptions are always plugged into the equations, as I wrote above, there are too many assumptions. Another problem is the tendency to “giggle” the equations to balance them, so, of course, the equations can be balanced out.

The math can always be made to work, even if that fails to match reality.

Alright, thanks for the help. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still a little confused by it all, but it seems like the key to my confusion is the fact that the big bang was a singularity different from your average black hole, and that not only the matter of the galaxy in question, but the space itself involved is expending as well.

That should suffice for a music major I suppose, I won’t be kept up at night anymore (I hope).

I have something to say about the article you linked to.
First of all: The Hubble picture is all but sharp. The resolution is really bad – I think it was taken from another picture that used to be bigger and was scaled up. If you really want to see nice beautiful arcs: Just take a look at the Hubble pic again that I linked before (and I did it again, just click on my name). But now: The text itself.

“Item: If the mass distribution matches the luminosity distribution in the galaxy (it’s more or less spherical and symmetric), the lens should produce a smeared-out ring, not four sharp images. ”

Well. As we consider the “dots” to be Quasars we need to know what a Quasar is. Quasars are actually very bright DOTS. And you can do with a dot what ever you want to do, it will remain a dot. I wanted to say, just check Wikipedia about Quasars. But I guess you will doubt it. So I just refer to the name itself: Quasar = QUASi-stellAR (radio) source. The “stellar” is important, because every star is a dot or point source, and Quasars are also dots in the sky (very high energetic dots to be precise), hence their name.
But a dot will not “stretch” out to something. A dot will ever be a dot.

“Item: When the z of the quasar is set to the reference frame of the galaxy (1.73 – 0.31 = 1.42), it falls on a “preferred value” of z. (In the Big Bang, “preferred values” of z can only mean that galaxies and quasars are distributed in shells centered on the Earth, something even more unlikely than the coincidental alignment of four quasars and a galaxy.)”

I have never heared of “preferred values”. It sounds like a contradiction the priciple of relativity. Everything in “mainstream” cosmology is based upon that principle. A preferred value wouldn’t be acceptable in GR or BBT, too.
Here comes the bracket: That is the contradiction of said principle again. BBT will never ever claim such shells. The earth is the center of nothing – that is what “mainstream” scientist will tell you.

“Item: The faint ring of luminosity connecting the quasar images is matched by faint spokes of luminosity connecting the quasar images to the galaxy. ”

That spokes look like an aberration to me. Have you seen those lines coming out of the Quasars? But even if they are real… the faint ring – well, that is actually a lens, is it not? I guess this is part of one or more of the Quasars, since Quasars are actually centers of galaxies, I would consider this a faint disk. And btw: In that smeared picture I can see nothing of a connection. If you want to see a crystal clear picture of a gravitational lense – well, as I said, take my name!

“Item: Gravitational lensing is solely a phenomenon of mass, but galaxies are made of plasma. The primary quality of plasma is charge—electricity—and the effects of electricity overshadow the effects of mass 99 to 1. Energetic phenomena that require 96% dark matter, dark energy and black holes to power with mass require only 4% plasma—the quantity actually observed.”

There is much to say about this point. First of all: Coulomb’s law is about two electric charges and the force between them. Very similar is Newton’s law about gravitation. Let’s compare them:

F_coul = 1/(4*pi*epsilon_0)*q1*q2/r^2
F_grav = G*m1*m2/r^2

where m1 and m2 are the masses and q1 and q2 the charges of the objects one and two and r is the norm of the vector between both. Let’s put in the values for protons. A very brief calculation results in

F_coul/F_grav = e^2 / (4*pi*epsilon_0*G*m_p^2) = 8,25*10^25

Hence the repulsive force between the protons is about 26 orders of magnitude greater than the pull between their masses. 99 to 1 is very underestimated in that sense.
But it goes on. In your article the “99 to 1″ leads to another article which says:

“But now we’ve discovered that it makes up 99 percent of the visible
universe. That component is plasma.”

Gee, I am surprised. Since every star is far too hot for atoms to remain intact we have ions and electrons screaming around there – well that’s the definition of a plasma. I am shocked, a star contains plasma.
So. After breathing normal again, let’s think about it. If the repulsive electrostatic forces are that much higher than gravitation why do stars exist at all? Shouldn’t they have flown apart? We have free flowing protons and electrons… hm. Protons and electrons have the same strength when it comes to electrostatic forces. But their sign is different. A Proton is charged +e and an electron -e. And since they all add up equally the netcharge of a star is: ZERO. Well. There is no electrostatic force in or on a star to rip it apart. So the weak gravitation can do the job.

Let’s get back to the cited statement we were originally discussing. The first sentence doesn’t sound logical to me. Does that mean that plasma is massless?
Well, let’s go on. The last sentence. Actually it says nothing to me. “require only 4% plasma – the quantity actually observed”. Well, that says only, that the actual “mainstream” measurements are correct and that a galaxy contains probably 4 % “normal” matter or plasma (which is actually the same in that sense) and 96% dark matter. Nothing else. That sentence sounds really difficult but it is meaningless.

“Halton Arp—a modern Galileo—may be heard to sigh: “There are hundreds of these things in the sky. The quasars and galaxies are connected.” ”

Really? Well, Quasars and galaxies are connected, because quasars actually ARE galaxies. Of course, this isn’t meant. There is supposed to be a physical connection between the Quasars and the galxy in the center of the picture. As I said before: I see just a smeared out picture and nothing like a connection. Just check my picture (my name….) again.

But I am not finished. The article linked to another one (the link “prefered values”).

“This difficulty highlights the fact that quantum “mechanics” applied to atoms is a theory without physical reality. The weirdness of quantum theory has been attributed to the subatomic scale to which it applies. But now that we have quantum effects in something the size of a galaxy, this convenient nonsense is exposed.”

Again, what does this mean? QM doesn’t have a physical reality? We wouldn’t be alive without that “reality” – and QM is “proven” many times! The following sentence says exactly that. But the latter is strange. First of all: What convenient nonsense? And QM cannot apply to “the bigger world”. We would trace them on earth if they would. And now they should apply to a galaxy? But not to ours since we don’t feel anything of that “convenient nonsense” on earth!?

Do say something to your post directly? Well. GR is a theory about gravitation and mass. It was never meant to do anything with electrodynamics. But that does not rule out a theory. Just because Maxwell’s laws don’t say something about quantum mechanics, that doesn’t mean that they are wrong or ruled out!

Before I quit, one last thing: I hear “so much” about that currents flying through space and are surrounded and aligned by magnetic fields. But: where are they? The presence of a magnetic field leads to a phenomenon called gyration: Charged particles are flying in circles around a magnetic field line while they are following the path of the line. Well. A curved motion means acceleration. And electrodynamics says something about accelerated charged particles: They emit electromagnetic radiation – light! Those currents should be extreamly bright and quite obvious, but I never saw nor heard of them. Where are they?

Well, that was much! I haven’t read it again, so sorry for the load of mistakes that should be in it.
So long.
DrFlimmer

Argh. I forgot the gravitational constant G in my calculation. With it included the ratio raises to 1,23*10^36 which is even 11 orders of magnitude greater than my first calculation. And still stars exist!

After reading your posts it’s clear that you don’t have a strong grasp of the subjects you’re talking about. According to you:

“I have conducted my personal research, and in the course of that research, I have applied the scientific method.”

If you say so yourself. You appear to be doing this on your own and without the benefit of the experiences and lessons of a mentor and the constructive critical input from others.

“But what I think you’re driving at is this: Have I engaged in the actual observation, measurement, and interpretation of my own data? No, I haven’t, but I can apply reason and be objective about data collected by others — I have no axe to grind or agenda. Matching theory and reality is all I care about.”

In other words you don’t have the scientific background and knowledge and experimental experience to actually understand wether the theories and ideas talked about makes sense or are bogus. This being applied equally to both black holes and plasma cosmology. You’ve applied the scientific method as best as you understand it and tried to understand the theories as best as you can. But you’ve also taken it upon yourself to lecture people about the scientific method. And yet you brush off theories

You have constantly refered to Einstein’s theories of Relativity as nothing more than mathematical theories and thought experiments that can be simply brushed if off. Relativity has so far held up to experimental testing starting from 1919 when stars around the sun, during a solar, were shifted by the amount predicted by Einstein. It also explained the issue with Mercury’s orbit. There have been other tests, one of the latest conducted using the Cassini probe is it swung behind the Sun. It was the highest precision test so far and the results matched the prediction.

GPS is also an everyday appliation of GR. You might also be interested in the following. Experimental results of testing GR in a lab.

luth2.obspm.fr/IHP06/lectures/mester-vinet/IHP-2GravRedshift.pdf

“I have no axe to grind or agenda”. Since you brought it up, you seem very passionate about this subject and very quick to lecture about the scientific method. There’s something more to this than you let on. But this is going off in a different direction.

As for the article I posted, it was meant to be a suggestion and not an irrefutable evidence in favor of black holes. It was a suggestion for getting yourself out of the paradox you seem to have gotten into through your simplified understand of complex subjects.

I personally do no have the experience a reals scientist would have. Which is why I’m not in any position, like you, to say to scientists “Science, ur doin it wrongz!” based on some things I read on the web.

I have said all that I can about subject. Thanks for the entertainment.

I appreciate your response. I will try and and address your responses in the order you presented them.

@ ND:

I also appreciate your response and will address your response after commenting on DrFlimmer’s comments.

DrFlimmer states: “The Hubble picture is all but sharp. The resolution is really bad.” I won’t vouch for the quality of the picture in the link.

DrFlimmer: “A dot will ever be a dot.” Resolution of the images of quasars has increased and I’ve seen a few of them that do indeed show a connection between the quasar and the “parent” galaxy. Halton Arp indeed has studied many of these images where the quasar and the connected “parent” galaxy are connected by inter-galaxtic Birkeland currents, yet have different redshift values, Arp theorizes redshift is more an indication of age than distance, quasars being younger have a higher redshift according to Arp’s work. As I said before that contradicts the conventional assumptions about redshift — Arp has been studying quasars for over 30 years.

DrFlimmer states: “Everything in “mainstream” cosmology is based upon that [General Relativity] principle.”

Exactly my point. And if General Relativity omits consideration of a fundamental aspect of the Cosmos — plasma and its enherent properties of electromagnetism (electric currents) — then there is no way it can be expected to accurately interpret or explain the phenomenon in the Universe. To rely on a theory that does’t account for an observed fundamental dynamic of the Cosmos, yet, itself has to have “objects” (“black holes”), “particles” (“dark matter”), and “energy” (“dark energy”) theorized that have never been observed in order for it to work at all demonstrates the failure of General Relativity theory.

Plasma Cosmology doesn’t rely on any unseen phenomenon. All it’s properties have been accounted for in the laboratory, Plasma physics (electromagnetics) is scale independent up to at least 14 orders of magnitude. The phenomenon observed in the heavens have been created in the plasma laboratory.

DrFlimmer states: “BBT [“big bang” theory] will never ever claim such shells.” “Big bang” theory is worst offender in the set of General Relativity corollary theories. Science can’t speculate or know what happened at the beginning. Certainly, it can’t willfully set aside all the known physical laws of nature and claim it is a scientific theory based on observation and measurement. It’s an idea based on a desire to speculate on “the beginning”, but it’s goes beyond what science can do. Setting aside all the physical laws of nature is called a “miracle” in laymen’s terms, science doesn’t do miracles.

DrFlimmer presents a quote from the article I linked: “The faint ring of luminosity connecting the quasar images is matched by faint spokes of luminosity connecting the quasar images to the galaxy.”

And DrFlimmer responds: “That spokes look like an aberration to me. Have you seen those lines coming out of the Quasars?”

Yes, I have seen several different pictures that show a connecting filament between the quasar and the nearby galaxy.

DrFlimmer states: “…Quasars are actually centers of galaxies…”

Quasars are embryonic galaxies that are ejected from the “parent” galaxy by extremely strong electromagnetic forces and maintain an umbilical cord of sorts in the form of inter-galactic Birkeland currents according to Plasma Cosmology.

DrFlimmer states: “99 to 1 is very underestimated in that sense.”

Thank you for working the calculations. Yes, it’s underestimated electromagnetism is 10^39 more powerful than gravity (if my memory serves me).

DrFlimmer presents a quote from the article I linked: ““But now we’ve discovered that it makes up 99 percent of the visible
universe. That component is plasma.”

And DrFlimmer responds: “Gee, I am surprised. Since every star is far too hot for atoms to remain intact we have ions and electrons screaming around there – well that’s the definition of a plasma. I am shocked, a star contains plasma.”

Yes, that is true, but it’s also all the “gas” clouds and nebula, too. Just about everything you can see in the telescope and things you can’t see, but give off radio waves and x-rays, too. That is why radio telescopes and x-ray telescopes have opened Man’s perception to the Plasma Cosmos.

DrFlimmer states at the end of a paragraph: “There is no electrostatic force in or on a star to rip it apart. So the weak gravitation can do the job.”

That is not quite correct. There are electric currents (inter-stellar Birkeland currents)flowing into the star, which acts as a positive anode in a larger circuit and as a load in the circuit where heat and light are emitted or radiated. Occasionally, an influx of current will come into a star and overload it electrically causing it to explode, like a blown transformer in a city’s electrical grid.

DrFlimmer states: “Let’s get back to the cited statement we were originally discussing. The first sentence doesn’t sound logical to me. Does that mean that plasma is massless?” I assume you are referring to: “Gravitational lensing is solely a phenomenon of mass, but galaxies are made of plasma.”

What the sentence means is that the concept of gravitational lensing assumes a gravitational model that doesn’t incorporate the presence of plasma.

DrFlimmer states: “The last sentence. Actually it says nothing to me. “require only 4% plasma – the quantity actually observed”. Well, that says only, that the actual “mainstream” measurements are correct and that a galaxy contains probably 4 % “normal” matter or plasma (which is actually the same in that sense) and 96% dark matter. Nothing else. That sentence sounds really difficult but it is meaningless.”

I disagree, it is very significant in a scientfically factual, relevant manner. What it means is this: The gravitational model (with no consideration of plasma dynamics) requires 96% more matter than is actually observed. In other words, for the gravitational model 96% of the “matter” has to be in the form of theorized, but never observed or detected “dark matter”. Whereas, Plasma Cosmology dynamics only need the 4% that is actually observed because electromagnetism is so much more powerful than gravity. Again, in other words, Plasma Cosmology doesn’t require any theorized, unseen “matter” of any kind. Plasma dynamics only needs the matter that can actually be accounted for by observation and measurement, no theorized (invented) “dark matter” required.

DrFlimmer, you raise the issue of Quantum Mechanics. What the offending sentence means is this: Quantum Mechanics applies to the atomic scale; it’s used to locate by probability theory, electrons orbiting a nucleus. But it’s inappropriate to use Quantum Mechanics to estimate galaxy dynamics (it’s also fair to say the author of the offending quote probably doesn’t believe in the validity of Quantum Mechanics).

DrFlimmer states: “Do say something to your post directly? Well. GR is a theory about gravitation and mass. It was never meant to do anything with electrodynamics. But that does not rule out a theory.”

Exactly my point. Yes, it does. You can’t have a general all encompassing theory of space (the Universe) dynamics that leaves out a fundamental dynamic of 99% of the matter in the Cosmos and expect it to be accurate. That explains why “black holes” have to be used (invented) as a corollary of the theory, and “dark matter” has to be theorized, and even “strange matter” has to be theroized because without them General Relativity doesn’t work. In any other field of science having to theorized “unseen” phenomenon to make it work would falsify the theory.

DrFlimmer states: “I hear “so much” about that currents flying through space and are surrounded and aligned by magnetic fields. But: where are they? The presence of a magnetic field leads to a phenomenon called gyration: Charged particles are flying in circles around a magnetic field line while they are following the path of the line. Well. A curved motion means acceleration. And electrodynamics says something about accelerated charged particles: They emit electromagnetic radiation – light! Those currents should be extreamly bright and quite obvious, but I never saw nor heard of them. Where are they?

“They emit electromagnetic radiation – light!” That is the reason you can see the visible Universe. But also electric currents can give off radiation that is not visible to the human eye, such as radio waves and x-rays, not all electric currents emit light, there is such a thing as plasma in dark mode — an energy level that does not cause the emission of visible light, also it can be hard to detect electric currents, unless a probe passes through the current, such is why NASA is only now confirming Birkeland currents between the Sun and the Earth.

I appreciated the discussion, thanks.

@ND:

ND states: “I personally do no have the experience a reals scientist would have.” So it seems somewhat contradictory to say, “…you don’t have a strong grasp of the subjects you’re talking about.”

My comments speak for themselves.

ND states: “You appear to be doing this on your own and without the benefit of the experiences and lessons of a mentor and the constructive critical input from others.”

Certainly not from you:-)

But to answer your question seriously, yes, I have received constructive critical input from others.”

ND states: “In other words you don’t have the scientific background and knowledge and experimental experience to actually understand whether the theories and ideas talked about makes sense or are bogus.”

Wrong there pardner.

ND states: “And yet you brush off theories.”

No, I don’t brush off theories, I’ve given thought and study to this proposition and to the other theory of the gravitational model.

After comparing the theories, I find that there are too many assumptions that the gravitational theory asks you to accept.

Don’t you get tired of complimenting the emperor’s new clothes all the time when you can’t see them and they cant be observed or measured, but you’re told to trust that “black holes”, “dark matter”, and “strange matter”, or “dark energy”, and don’t forget the “big bang” are really “there”?

It doesn’t add up for me.

ND, have you ever studied Plasma Cosmology?

You see Plasma Cosmology has been demonstrated experimentally in the laboratory because plasma dynamics are scale independent up to at least 14 orders of magnitude and observed in the field as it were. NASA has confirmed the plasma dynamics between the Sun and the Earth.

ND states: “You have constantly refered to Einstein’s theories of Relativity as nothing more than mathematical theories and thought experiments that can be simply brushed if off.”

No, I did not brush it off, I gave it serious consideration and found it wanting for the reasons I’ve stated and more that I haven’t stated, here.

ND states: “There’s something more to this than you let on.”

I’m disappointed you seem to be calling my motives into question.

ND states: “As for the article I posted, it was meant to be a suggestion and not an irrefutable evidence in favor of black holes. It was a suggestion for getting yourself out of the paradox you seem to have gotten into through your simplified understand of complex subjects.”

Yes, a suggestion it was, a suggestion to engage in speculation as a way to avoid the paradox that this post brought up about the theory of “black holes”.

Yes, I understand — that’s why I don’t subscribe to the gravitational model. But I will say this, it’s simple enough, Plasma Cosmology better explains the observations, measurements, and images from space and it doesn’t ask me to believe in things that have never been observed and that violate known physical laws of nature.

That would mean, if we take some atoms and look at them on earth for quite a while the emitted lines should shift to red. Indeed our timescales are nothing comapred to the Universe, but our instruments are very precise by now. I think they should measure such an effect. But as long as I am interested in Physics (I am studying it right now for about 3.5 years) I have never heared about such things. And I think such an experiment would have been done.
Oh. To add: If it really depends on age than ALL lines must be different for any atom since they have different ages OR if we assume their age is all the same EVERY atom in the entire universe must have the same lines, hence no redshift! That’s a paradox, is it not?
You will certainly not claim that the Milky Way is much younger than those other galaxies – that would have been quite a fast building of an entire galaxy…

“And DrFlimmer responds: “Gee, I am surprised. […]
That is why radio telescopes and x-ray telescopes have opened Man’s perception to the Plasma Cosmos.”

I hope you know that my statement was meant to be ironic!

” “They emit electromagnetic radiation – light!” That is the reason you can see the visible Universe. […] also it can be hard to detect electric currents, unless a probe passes through the current, such is why NASA is only now confirming Birkeland currents between the Sun and the Earth.”

Well, I’ve been too easy on that point. Of course with light I meant the whole spectrum and not just the small visible part. The emitted light is called synchrotron radiation, btw. It is the same that is reaching us from Quasars (beside the thermal radiation from the accretion disk). And synchrotron radiation is easily visible in the radio part of the spectrum, although it can even be as powerful as gamma rays. So. Whatever the light is those currents should emit: We would’ve detected it by now since we observe the whole spectrum from the lowest radio frequencys up to most energetic gamma frequencys.
And we can I say that? Have you ever seen a picture of M87 (click on my name if you like)? It’s an active galaxy, somehow similar to a Quasar. Do you see that narrow ray coming right out of the center? This is called a jet. It’s a very narrow beam of particles (indeed, plasma) focused by a magnetic field reaching out nearly 5000 ly. And it is tremendously bright even though it is not directly aimed at us. This is synchrotron radiation emitted by electrons on a curved trajectory around those field lines (gyration).
This is the exact way “your” currents should behave. Hence thay MUST be detectable but I don’t see them on any picture (hopefully you don’t claim that it’s all a big conspiracy and they are always removed – that would be ridiculous and with all due respect, you canNOT be that dumb). If such a current flows from the sun to the earth it must be detectable even if a spacecraft is not passing through it.
Another thing to that current connecting the sun and the earth. If it is indeed changing with a time of 8min it should induce highly variable magnetic fields into the earth’s. That would have a very detectable effect on the strength of the earth’s magnetic field even on the ground, we are not measuring anything like that. And our satallites circling the earth once every 90 minuits, or so, should be influenced by such a rapid change. Since a rapidly changing magnetic field in turn induces currents (and/or electric fields) our satallites should be penetrated by a massive stream of particles or again highly variable electric fields. I guess this would be a “death” scenario for every satallite since all their internal currents should react as well and should run mad.
Back to you:

“There are electric currents (inter-stellar Birkeland currents)flowing into the star, which acts as a positive anode in a larger circuit and as a load in the circuit where heat and light are emitted or radiated. Occasionally, an influx of current will come into a star and overload it electrically causing it to explode, like a blown transformer in a city’s electrical grid.”

Apart from the non-detection of those currents, let’s think about it. A star is supposed to act as a positive anode which means it has to be charged positvely, hence it should have more protons than electrons, right? Hence it would attract electrons and repel protons from the current. Probably the protons are energetic enaugh to reach the star it would gain an even more posive charge unless it collects as many electrons as protons – but it attracts electrons as long as it is charged. And it will attract every electron coming nearby and not just the same amount as those energetic protons. Thus the star will loose its charge. It will collect so many electrons until its netcharge is zero. Just like a battery is discharged almost immediately when you short-circuit it.
But just assume the sun is charged positvely. It would have a direct impact on the solar wind. The protons would be repeled, hence their velocity away from the sun should be much greater than the electrons because the elctrons are attracted. But as far as I know the stream of particles is moving very smoothly, not showing any sign of much different velocities. Hence the sun has to be an overall neutral body.
Let’s go on. You state that a current into a star will overload it, leading to its explosion – I guess you are referring to a supernova explosion. I assume this is indeed the case and I will discuss it a little bit. I mentioned in my previous post the involved forces and their ratio. Since the electrostatic force is much more powerful than the gravitational force a charged star would probably rip itself apart, probably leaving nothing behind but moving particles. Probably it would induce that much energy that some nuclei could fuse to heavier elements but nothing strange would happen. No other elementary particles would be created, especially no neutrinos (probably due to the mentioned fusion processes at least some were created but not many).
But that is exactly what happens. During the explosion of SN 1987A the neutrino detectors around the world measured extreamly high flows of neutrinos. These were the first extra-solar neutrinos ever observed and they came in in vast numbers – indeed according to the “mainstream” theory about a supernova explosion.
And even if a supernove explosion would be induced by currents, how does it come that such explosions tend to leave behind very dense bodys – degenerated neutron stars to be precise. They can ONLY exist due to, say, extream gravitational influences. Only gravity (although weak) is capable of creating such conditions that only degenaracy will keep the body stable (we are talking about objects with masses of two suns and a radius of about a few kilometers!). And we are observing them directly, neutron stars do exist.

Well, this is indeed very much again, although I admit that I like this debate as well, somehow. I just want to conclude with the term “falsify a theory”: It doesn’t mean that a theory must preict it’s own failiure. It is meant that a theory must give predictions that can be tested (that is a difference).
And GR is tested: GPS would not work without GR! Since the satallites are in a different potential state than we earthbound folks their clocks are behaving differently to ours. GR says that clocks in a lower gravitational state (high up from the earth) are going faster than those in a higher state (on the ground). And indeed the atomic clocks onboard the satallites are faster compared to our clocks – even that they are moving (time delay via SR) doesn’t cancel out that effect. GPS works because of GR. Satallite navigation works because of GR. Mercury behaves according to GR. Light bended around the sun from distant stars behaves accordings to GR. GR is working! Even probably in the strong field of a double pulsar.

Gee. I haven’t finished yet. And since I am talking about principles of relativity I want to clarify something:

“DrFlimmer states: “Everything in “mainstream” cosmology is based upon that [General Relativity] principle.”

Exactly my point. And if General Relativity omits consideration of a fundamental aspect of the Cosmos — plasma and its enherent properties of electromagnetism (electric currents) — then there is no way it can be expected to accurately interpret or explain the phenomenon in the Universe.”

You misunderstand me. I was talking about the “principle of relativity” which Einstein used 1905 to calculate SR. It was modified only a little since GR ist not only about initial frames. The general principle of relativity says:
“All systems of reference are equivalent with respect to the formulation of the fundamental laws of physics.”
That means there is no prefered frame. Every frames (initial or not) are equal. And what is working here is working there as well. It says nothing about the content – just about physical laws and theorys; every theory works in every system, even plasma physics and gravitation.
So just because GR doesn’t mention plasmas, this principle doesn’t contradict itself as you claimed. It’s talking about general physics – not about plasmas, gravitation, electromagnetism, etc etc.

Rather than respond to my comments or answer my questions in a substantive fashion (like, whether you have studied Plasma Cosmology?), you have chosen to offer an excuse for not doing so. Fine. The tone of your last substantive comment was dismissive and derogatory of my abiltity to apply reason and analyze the competing theories. At least I have compared both theories which you apparently have not done so. Now, there is nothing wrong with that per se, you may not of even heard of Plasma Cosmology prior to this discussion, such is the state of astronomy, today.

But now that you have heard of Plasma Cosmology, it’s up to you to decide whether or not to investigate an alternative theory. I can only partially lead a horse to water and I certainly can’t make him drink a drop.

As to your dismissive and derogatory tone, as expressed by this comment: “After reading your posts it’s clear that you don’t have a strong grasp of the subjects you’re talking about…This being applied equally to both black holes and plasma cosmology.”

First, how would you know whether my understanding of Plasma Cosmology was correct or not, since you haven’t studied it or the paradoxes and failures of General Relativity, judging by your lack of response to my questions asking if you had looked into either GR paradoxes or Plasma Cosmology?

Second, judging by the SpaceDaily article you linked to which in bald fashion falsely stated that dark matter was “discovered” 70 years ago, when, in fact, it was merely hypothesized 70 years ago, and the article’s going on to falsely state that there was “overwhelming” evidence for “dark matter” when in reality astrophysics is still chasing the elusive “dark matter” like it’s on a “snipe hunt,” the situation would seem to be it’s YOU who don’t have a strong grasp of the subject matter.

Throw in your seeming lack of comprehension that to claim a computer simulation relying on a theorized “particle” (“dark matter”), which is unobserved and undetected with unknown properties is anything more than pure speculation, and then offer that as a defense against my assertion this theory (“black holes” create galaxies) contradicts prior “black hole” theory, is also evidence that YOU don’t have a strong grasp of the subject matter or what the empirical scientific method entails (computer simulations don’t rise to observation and measurement in the above outlined context). [As demonstrated by your repeated injunction of the article even after I had pointed out its weaknesses once.]

So, please, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

As to the experiments you cite. As I said in response to DrFlimmer, gravity may bend light, although, I don’t subscribe to the geometric concept of the cause of gravity, gravity is a function of physical properties inherent in matter, not spatial (geometric) properties, nor do I subscribe to any space-time distortion, that is a metaphysical idea. Gravity doesn’t operate on space (nothing) to distort time, which in turn doesn’t act as a “force” against anything.

GPS (geo-positioning system) doesn’t rely on time distortion — I either misunderstand what you and DrFlimmer mean, or you are parroting a myth designed to reinforce General Relativity theory that has no basis in fact.

As for the other tests you refer to: I’m sure there are tests that General Relativity theory does pass or it wouldn’t be such a widely held belief to this day.

ND, the only “ridiculous[ness]” here, is your thinking that your comments have helped you cause — which is to defend “big bang”, black hole” theory at all costs, as opposed to having an open-mind and being objective about the scientific evidence.

All you have exposed is your defensiveness and closed minded approach to scientific evidence. Balancing an open-mind and reasonable scepticism is not easy, but is required for the proper exercise of the empirical scientific method.

Sorry, Anaconda. But even though I have to admit that Bad Astronomy was the first place in the world I heard about Plasma Cosmology and the relating things (in the comments to be precise) you leave me no other choice: You haven’t studied the “mainstream” side very well. I do not need as much words as I used before. Here we go:

“GPS (geo-positioning system) doesn’t rely on time distortion — I either misunderstand what you and DrFlimmer mean, or you are parroting a myth designed to reinforce General Relativity theory that has no basis in fact.”

GPS only works if you consider GR. Please, you must take that as a fact. I linked (my name…) to the wikipedia article which seems quite informative although I have just overflown it since it is very long (if you follow the link it will direct you automatically to the information you need). That is NO myth, it is REAL.
I am not making this up but I don’t see a way to convince you.

But a general question: What don’t you like about gravity? Do you just denie GR or Newton’s gravitational law, too? Since you are standing on the surface of the earth I think you will agree that there is an effect that keeps you from flying away – we call that gravity. What do you call it then?

Well. I think you still won’t believe me, even though this has nothing to do with believing. The GR effect on GPS is a matter of fact!

I appreciate the information. A field experiment as it were. I can’t refute it and I won’t try. I respect experimental results, that is one reason I subscribe to Plasma Cosmology — it has the plasma experiments in the lab to back it up.

I’m surprised that you have been studying astronomy for over three years and none of your instructors or the books assigned brought up plasma Cosmology.

DrFlimmer, I’ve been impressed with your ability to have an open-mind. Especially considering you have been studying astronomy for over three years. This whole discussion must be a shock to what you were told to believe. So, the fact that you were able to follow the discussion is a testiment to your curiosity and desire to know the Universe.

To that end I link the following article which has CLEAR images and explains better than I can in a series of posts:

1) Thanks. But I wasn’t told to believe anything in my studies. To be a student means to ASK questions, and professors want the students to ask questions. You always need those young guys to ask questions – that drives the progress of science.

2) Believe it or not, I am not a fan of “dark matter” and “dark energy”. This sounds a little bit like the ether 100yrs ago. But don’t celebrate to early; I have to discuss some points of your link. I will give a statement at the end.

3) I don’t know if I am in the mood to answer the whole story (I thought about calling it a tale) that you linked to. It is after midnight local time (CET) right now. But let’s see.

I probably start with some basics about plasmas: As the link states correctly a plasma is a gas where the electrons are ripped apart from the nuclei. This is due to heat. So we need high temperatures (a few thousand Kelvin) to create plasmas. That means the particles (electrons and nuclei) are moving due to their heat. Such a movement is RANDOM. To gain a current we must ALIGN the movements of the electrons. Heat won’t give us such conditions. We need external fields to do that – probably electric fields since they are able to accelerate charged particles. While we are not having such external fields the movements of the particles will remain random and we gain no current. Probably there will be a part where by chance a few more electrons were gathered. Well, we get a little charge seperation. Thus (internal) electric fields will appear trying to pull back the electrons. But this is internal and on a very small scale (Debye-length). Since the electrons accelerate a bit they will pass the proton and the game reverses. Probably we have a little oscillation inside the system (plasma-frequency). But over time it will settle down. Still we have no (overall) currents.

So. All we need for electric currents to occure and reveal their power are external electric fields – where do they come from? Let’s turn to your link:

“Even in a plasma comprising just one charged particle in 10,000 – which would be typical of the interstellar clouds of dust and gas from which stars are formed –”

Well. Why should there be such a particle? Everything we observe is that we always have equal amounts of charge – everywhere! And everything that is charged tends to discharge itself by collecting the apropreate amount of the other one. Many experiements show us that the “conservation of charge” is a fundamental thing. I.e. pair production (an electron-positron-pair emerging from a gamma ray in the vicinity of a nuclei). So I consider that the odds that the netcharge of a gascloud is not zero is essentially zero.

“And today’s reigning cosmological model, founded on general relativity, is essentially a theory of geometry manifesting itself as gravity.”

This sentence clearifys the author’s non-understanding of the matter he thinks he is talking about. He has never studied physics, never studied GR, he just heard and read about it, but I don’t think that he never ever tried to understand what it is. Btw, I am sitting in a course about GR right now. It is hard and probably strange. But the “geometry” has its rights. And since its predictions are tested (GPS, Mercury, light bending around the sun) and showed to be very precise it is neither fair nor right to say it is all nonsense!

“Pulsars – rapidly varying stellar objects conventionally interpreted as spinning neutron stars – have now been measured to fluctuate at rates that call into question even the power of postulated neutron matter to hold together.”

What fluctuations? Postulated neutron matter? The first thing I don’t have a clue what he means. The second…. neutron matter – yes: neutrons to be precise! They are not postulated. We have even neutron BOMBS on earth (it doesn’t mean I like that we have those) if he questions their existence. And neutron stars do exist. That is shown many times (please allow me not to search for papers now, to write this text will take a great amount of time, searching papers will at least double that time – probably if you urge me I will do it tomorrow).

“Quasars, if accepted in accordance with the customary reading of red-shift as being the most distant objects known, radiate energy with intensities that defy explanation by any process involving conventional matter”

THAT is not true! First of all, I talked about red-shift before, please read it again if you like.
We have a very good idea where the radiation is coming from. If we take the “mainstream” idea than the accretion disk tends to be VERY hot, millions of Kelvins to be precise (oh, Kelvin is a unit of temeperature, just like Celius and Fahrenheit; it starts with the zero-point at -273.14°C). So they shine tremendously bright, especially in X-rays just due to their heat (blackbody radiation and something like that). And we have synchrotron radiation. I talked about that in my previous posts, too – just look it up. So it is all with conventional matter, nothing strange.

“Around the turn of the nineteenth century, the Norwegian physicist Kristian Birkeland studied the northern auroras and concluded that they are caused by charged particles from the Sun being directed to the polar regions by the Earth’s magnetic field, where they excite atoms of the upper atmosphere to light-emission energies.”

Well, THIS is the exact term you will hear from every physicist!

“there is still an entrenched reluctance to accept them as parts of electrical circuitry that not only connects the Earth to the Sun, but spans the entire Solar System.”

THAT is the problem. A galactic wide electrical circuit – meaning electric fields. To gain currents you need electric fields. Every cable works that way. So, what we need is a galactic electric field. How can we gain that? Well, we need charged bodys to produce it. But we do not have those. As I previously said, every charged body will be discharged almost directly (I also talked about that earlier). So we have no sources for the fields, hence I don’t expect any.
And as fas as I know our satallites never detected electric fields. They detected the solar wind, made out of electrons and protons, but no electric fields (yes the movement of the solar wind is aligned, but since it is composed of equal amounts of positve and negative charges flying at the same velocity, there is no current detectable).

“Electric currents create magnetic fields, which induce secondary currents, which in turn produce their own fields.”

First of all: A CHANGING current induces magnetic fields and a CHANGING magnetic field induces electric currents. Second: Due to Lenz’s law an induced magnetic field always tries to oppose its cause. What I mean is, the reinduced current by the changing of the field goes into the opposite direction of the first current, in an attempt to cancel it out. This is how induction works. But the main point is: It ONLY works with a CHANGE in fields/currents/fluxes. If you have just a current where elctrons are just moving along equally, nothing will happen, no magnetic field will appear, no secondary current will be created. Nothing!

“For a start, simulations and calculation indicate that peripheral matter in such a disk would disperse rather than coalesce into planetary clumps.”

Haven’t heard about that!

“Then there’s the question of how the angular momentum – the property that makes a flywheel want to keep turning – comes to be concentrated in the planets – 98 percent of it in the case of our Solar System. A contracting disk should deliver most of its angular momentum to the central part, giving the Sun a rotation period of something like 13 hours instead of the 28 days that it has.”

Indeed, this is true. And in this case magnetic fields coupled with the intergalactic field (and probably with the solar wind, but I’m not sure about that) cause a drag on the sun. And 4 billion years are quite a time to slow the sun!

“And further, where did it all came from to begin with? Dispersed matter initially moving randomly should contain very little net angular momentum.”

Turbulences. They are quite common in space as they are on earth! A hurricane for example is also created in an atmosphere that is moving randomly and results a tremendous aligned movement – it’s probably similar to the gain of angular momentum of a star. And: The cloud a star collapses from is VERY hugh! Lightyears across. Only a very small amount of angular momentum will do, since the resulting star is much smaller than the gas cloud and angular momentum depends on the size of the thing. And because it is conserved the little a-m of the gascloud adds up to a very high rotation of the star.

“Finally, for a star the size of the Sun, gravitational contraction won’t produce a high enough density at the core to generate the temperature necessary for igniting the fusion reactions generally believed to be the power source. To make it work, various quantum mechanical improbabilities are wheeled in to allow things to happen that all the odds say shouldn’t.”

Oh yes, the density in the star’s core is extreamly high. The overall density of the sun is around 1.4 gr/ccm (if I remember the number correctly). This is not much indeed (a little more than water). But the sun is much thinner on it’s surface hence it is MUCH denser in the core. And there are no “quantum mechanical improbabilities” involved. The physics are working just fine. And since we can describe the suns behaviour and its energy output (altogether with the output of neutrinos) extreamly well I say that our model is really good!

“Stars are concentrated along the spiral arms of galaxies, which is also where new stars come into existence.”

While the last part is true, the first part is not. If you take a look at infrared pictures of galaxies the spral arms will almost completly disappear. And why is that? Brighter stars are also bluer, thus they aren’t bright in the infrared, tey are almost invisible. But since they are bright in the visible part of the spectrum they outshine the darker stars of the disk. But why are bright stars just located in the spiral arms? Here we must take the last part of the quote into account. Stars are born where the interstellar medium is thick and compressed, exactly the conditions in spiral arms. Thus bright stars (along with darker stars) are born in the arms. Why don’t they get out of there? Since they are bright they tend to be massive. And massive stars are burning up much faster than low-mass stars, only a few million years (indeed most of the low-mass stars are not yet stars when the massive ones blow up!). So they don’t have a chance of leaving the arm since a revolution around the galaxies needs about 100million years. That is the reason why spiral galaxies have those arms – they are brighter than the rest of the disk.

“galaxies are active components in enormous cosmic power circuits. They’re not flywheels, but motors, driven by forces easily able to hold them together without need of invisible glue. Inventing unobservables to hold up failed predictions is usually the sign of a theory in trouble.”

I ask my question again: Where are those currents? As I said before: Thay should be tremendously bright!

“According to the standard theory, structures of that size shouldn’t have had time to form in the 14 billion years since everything was supposed to have started with the Big Bang.”

Just because it started with a bang doesn’t mean it can’t settle down, does it? 14billion years is quite a time!

“the creation of jets through unclear processes involving acceleration and mechanical collisions in accretion disks of matter spiraling into them.”

They are not unclear, indeed we have a good idea, and probably you’re glad to hear that magnetic fields play an important role. But I already talked about jets and quasars (previous posts probably…).
But here comes one of my favourite parts (presented in parts ):

“Despite widely repeated claims to the contrary, black holes have never been observed.”

Since they are black by definition it is hard, indeed! But we HAVE. Just check Wikipedia for “Cygnus X-1″. Also black holes do something that guys like you tend to refuse: the bending of light around massive objects (we talked about the lenses before and I told you many times that the effect has been observed around the sun as wel!!). So a black hole does reveal itself if it passes in front of a star (or other shiny objects). The light of the star gets distorted by the black hole and the effect is mesurable and it has been observed (I am not searching for refernces tonight, it’s almost 2am).

“The way engineers and researchers produce x-rays is by accelerating charged particles with electric fields. Your dentist doesn’t do it by banging rocks together.”

And neither do we! The way black holes / quasars produce their X-rays and gamma rays is mentioned above: Thermal radiation (heat…) and synchrotron radiation! Engeneers, researchers and dentists are doing it with bremsstrahlung (I always like german words in an english text ). So we have three very well understood ways to produce them! And we are still not throwing rocks together (and rocks would be smashed to smithereens due to the enormous tidal forces of the black hole -> spaghettification).

“So what are we seeing? Gravity, which produces formless coagulations of matter like clots in cream? Or electricity?”

Indeed, no electricity. Electricity needs currents, currents need charged bodies. Since we don’t have charged bodies we don’t have currents. Even though I am not a fan of dark matter I prefer this explanation – since the only problem is their existence. Electric Universe needs charged bodies that do not exist (and that do I take as proven).

I want to add something (I don’t know if it will ever be noticed, but what the heck).

First of all a simple question: Anaconda, do you accept that GR is a theory that works and makes good predictions? You must say Yes since there are several tests mentioned above (GPS, Mercury, light bending around the sun,…).

So, we consider GR to work and to be able to make predictions. One prediction of GR are gravitational lenses. They were predicted long before we had any obersevation of them. Their appearence depends on two things: The mass of the foreground galaxy (the lense) and the angle of view. Since these are two free parameters a random galactic lense would certainly proof anything. But there is a special case to consider: If the background galaxy, the lense and the earth are well aligned (line-of-sight) then we gain a picture of the background galaxy that warps itself completly around the foreground galaxy; we call this an Einstein Ring.
So, if we detect an Einstein Ring we can be sure that the galaxies are aligned hence the appearence only depends of the mass of the lense. We get an independent value of the mass of the lense and can compare it to the mass we gain through the rotation of the galaxy. And the point is that both DO agree. We got the same value for the mass of the galaxy with two completly independent methods. This is a strong argument pro dark matter.

Of course, this doesn’t say that they are real. So we have to compare it to different theories, like “electric universe”. The problem with the latter is that it more or less denies the existence of such lenses (I understood it that way, is that correct?). It makes other claims like interstellar or intergallactic currents to which I always have the same question: Where are they (they MUST be clearly detectable as I pointed out several times). EU/PC also claims that redshift is rather a matter of age than of distance. If the former would be the case we gain some inconsistencies (as I also pointed out in a previous post). GR (a theory that has prooven its validity (we know the examples…)) says its the latter case.

So. I prefer a theory that has shown its validity; that is GR.
EU/PC has many weaknesses as I have shown several times, because I was able to disprove almost every claim you and your links made.

As I said. I still have some feelings of unease about DM, but it’s the best explanation we have so far about what is going on in the universe.

I’m disappointed, though not terribly surprised by your response to the article. This comment section is the first time you have heard of this theory and in the span of two days time you have studied the idea and made a sweeping rejection of it? That seems awfully quick, but then again it must relieve the cognitive dissonance this theory must cause you.

DrFlimmer, have you studied plasma physics or electrical engineering? I doubt it based on your statements, here, in these comments.

Let me make a few general responses and then treat your Jan. 10th, 8:00 am comment then this last Jan. 11th, 6:07 pm comment.

DrFlimmer, your major objection to this theory seems to be that electric currents in space are nearly, if not impossible (because there are no charged bodies).

But the scientific fact is this: The only known cause that produces magnetic fields, whether in space or in the laboratory, is electric currents (other causes have been searched for by the best minds in science and never found). You have repeatedly acknowleged the presence of magnetic fields in space. I’ll repeat, science knows of only one way to create magnetic fields: Electric currents.

And since the Cosmos is full of magnetic fields it stands to reason there has to be electric currents (unless you want to engage in pure speculation to support your position).

Also, an inherent property of plasma, which you fully admit is 99% of the Cosmos, is electromagnetic dynamics. In other words, the ebb and flow of charged particles — of course, the movement of charged particles is electric current. Charged particles as studied in plasma physics, self-organize into electric currents — that is how plasma got the name, “plasma” because of the self-organizing characteristic which were observed from the start of its study.

Somebody who had studied plasma physics would know that; you don’t.

Also, you make much of images (pictures) from space and rightfully so, but strangely you fall silent in regards to the pictures in the Lew Rockwell article. Those pictures confirm the predictions of Plasma Cosmology. Which is interesting because it was the pictures I encouraged you to look at and comment on, yet you failed to address even one of the pictures.

Let’s take the first picture presented in the article: The Double Helix nebula, located near our own galactic center. This picture shows the braided effect predicted by Plasma Cosmology as has been demonstrated in the laboratory, which the article, thus, describes:

“The braid can interact with similar braids to form “ropes” on a larger scale, which might then repeat the process. Such braided structures are the signature of electric currents in plasmas. They have been shown to scale up through an astonishing fourteen orders of magnitude. Effects produced on a microscopic scale in laboratories can be observed unfolding at cosmological dimensions.”

DrFlimmer, for someone who is studying physics, you also fail to address even one time, all the laboratory experiments with plasma that replicate observations and pictures of phenomenon observed in space. For a physics major to ignore laboratory experiments for the comfort of general theories seems most in inconsistent and unexpected.

The heart and soul of physics is experiment, observation, and measurement — your comments ignore that idea entirely.

I might also add that your “thought” experiments that rule out the presence of ‘charged bodies’ in space are faulty and ignore the evidence and known properties of physics demonstrated in the laboratory. Again, what kind of ‘scientist’ ignores laboratory experiments, observations and measurements, and clings to theories like “dark matter” for which there is no scientific proof at all?

That is only a question you can answer, but I’d be curious to know your reasoning.

Finally, in my general comments, I note that you ignore all the “surprises” that conventional astronomy (gravity only) has admitted to in recent months if not years, while Plasma Cosmology has succesfully predicted what was subsequently observed in space and that when actually observed left conventional astronomers, “surprised.” Being “surprised” because your theory didn’t inticipate a phenomenon suggests the theory is inadequate, does it not?

Successful prediction is a hallmark of successful theories, is it not?

I will now proceed to your January 10th, 8:00 am comment.

DrFlimmer presents my comment: ““Arp theorizes redshift is more an indication of age than distance”

And DrFlimmer responds: “That would mean, if we take some atoms and look at them on earth for quite a while the emitted lines should shift to red. Indeed our timescales are nothing comapred to the Universe, but our instruments are very precise by now. I think they should measure such an effect.”

DrFlimmer, your best bet would be to study Halton Arp’s work directly, but since you have ruled out Arp’s conclusions two days after first reading of them, while Arp has been working 30 years to develop his body of work, I guess I can’t expect you to take the time to research it. Arp theorizes that the redshift is the reult of overall energy levels in the quasars — younger galactic bodies have higher redshift, older bodies have lower redshift.

DrFlimmer states: “But as long as I am interested in Physics (I am studying it right now for about 3.5 years) I have never heared about such things. And I think such an experiment would have been done.”

Sadly, it seems there are a lot of things you have never heard about — of course, that is not your fault, but your teachers…

DrFlimmer states: “If it really depends on age than ALL lines must be different for any atom since they have different ages OR if we assume their age is all the same EVERY atom in the entire universe must have the same lines, hence no redshift! That’s a paradox, is it not?”

This statement suggests you don’t understand the concept. It’s not an atom by atom phenomenon, as I understand it, but rather a function of the energy level of the galactic body that is why the ‘parent’ galaxy has a lower redhift value that the quasar, the ‘parent’ is less energetic than the expelled quasar.

The “big bang” is speculation based on setting aside known physical laws. As I stated before, science doesn’t do miracles — of course, you never responded to my assertion that science “doesn’t do miracles” because that’s exactly what the “big bang” theory is — invoking “miracle” theory.

Apparently, you have no problem invoking “miracles” (since you believe in the “big bang”). It’s problomatic for science to subscribe to miracles, is it not, DrFlimmer?

DrFlimmer states: “I hope you know that my statement was meant to be ironic!”

Frankly, I didn’t think it was intended to be ironic then and I still don’t — It was a statement that simply overlooked the radio and x-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and “overlooking things” seems to be a habit with you. What does physics know Radio waves? Radio waves need BOTH magnetic and electric fields in order to exist. Magnetic fields need electric currents in order to exist. So, we can conclude that electric currents and electric fields exist in deep space.

This is a specific set of known physical relationships understood by science, DrFlimmer, unless you have a specific counter-argument to this set of scientific understandings, your whole argument against Plasma Cosmology falls apart (you seem to have a habit of ignoring my strongest arguments).

Radio waves are proof of electric currents in space, again, your lack of knowledge is not your fault, it’s simply a result of your teachers’ failing to explain these known scientific properties. Ah, but now you have some ‘real’ questions to ask your teachers — I’d be interested in knowing how they answer these “inconvenient scientific facts.”

DrFlimmer states: ” The emitted light is called synchrotron radiation…And synchrotron radiation is easily visible in the radio part of the spectrum, although it can even be as powerful as gamma rays. So. Whatever the light is those currents should emit: We would’ve detected it by now since we observe the whole spectrum from the lowest radio frequencys up to most energetic gamma frequencys.”

Again, this comment demonstrates you have alot to learn about the physics of space and the observations that have been recorded. Synchotron radiation is a hallmark of electric curents. It is the result of spiral movements of electrical currents. As you state, it is a form of radio wave that it produced as the result of the specific movements and energy levels porduced by the specific shapes and movements of electric currents in space. In the laboratory, synchotron radiation is only produced by electric currents and magnetic fields.

Science has detected synchotron radiation from space (the hallmark signature of electric current).

DrFlimmer states: “Have you ever seen a picture of M87? It’s an active galaxy, somehow similar to a Quasar. Do you see that narrow ray coming right out of the center? This is called a jet. It’s a very narrow beam of particles (indeed, plasma) focused by a magnetic field reaching out nearly 5000 ly. And it is tremendously bright even though it is not directly aimed at us. This is synchrotron radiation emitted by electrons on a curved trajectory around those field lines. This is the exact way “your” currents should behave. Hence thay MUST be detectable…”

Yes, I have seen the picture of M87. In fact, it’s one of the strongest pieces of scientific evidence supporting plasma Cosmology.

What’s interesting is that you aren’t even conscious of the fact that you are actually presenting the evidence for Plasma Cosmology yourself. Thanks, I appreciate it, DrFlimmer.

DrFlimmer states “It’s [the jet] a very narrow beam of particles (indeed, plasma) focused by a magnetic field reaching out nearly 5000 ly. And it is tremendously bright even though it is not directly aimed at us. This is synchrotron radiation emitted by electrons on a curved trajectory around those field lines.”

Of course, this repeats your ignorance of the scientfic fact that magnetic fields are only known to be caused by electric currents. The “synchrotron radiation emitted by electrons on a curved trajectory around those field lines.” DrFlimmer your proceeding quote describes electric current. But you are so unfamililiar with the concepts involved that you don’t even realize that what you are describing is the phenomenon you state doesn’t exist.

I think you need to ask your teachers why they would provide a description to you, but fail to tell you that the only known phenomenon that generates what it describes is electric current.

And, again, the snchrotron radiation is proof of electric currents in space and science has detected them as you have explained.

Or maybe I should ask: Are you speculating that there is someother cause of all of the above besides electric currents?

Please, I’d like to know what you would speculate it (the jet) is attributed to.

Interesting that you fail to comment on this picture of M87 asit was presented in the LewRockwell article.

DrFlimmer states: “This is the exact way “your” currents should behave. Hence thay MUST be detectable…”

Yes, that is exactly Plasma Cosmology’s point. Electrons are not visble, here, on Earth or anywhere else, the electromagnetic energy they release from an excited energy state is what is “visible” or detectable. So the fact that synchrotron radiation is released by the “jet” is evidence that an electric current is flowing out the jet.

“The satellites have found evidence for magnetic ropes connecting Earth’s upper atmosphere directly to the Sun,” says Dave Sibeck, project scientist for the mission at the Goddard Space Flight Center. “We believe that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras.”

“Geomagnetic” means ‘electric’ storms because as priviously mentioned only electric currents are known to cause magnetic fields.

In addition the news release states:

“A ‘magnetic rope’ is a twisted bundle of magnetic fields organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner’s rope. Spacecraft have detected hints of these ropes before, but a single spacecraft is insufficient to map their 3D structure. THEMIS’s five satellites were able to perform the feat.”

DrFlimmer, note NASA’s desription: “a twisted bundle of magnetic fields organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner’s rope.”

This is almost an exact description of a Birleland current, an electric plasma current.

This structure has been created in the plasma laboratory using electrical current, in deed one can go to a novelty store and buy a “plasma ball” and note the structure of the electrical arcs coming from the central point.

DrFlimmer, you make much that these electrical currents should cause distubances detectable on the ground. DrFlimmer states: “That would have a very detectable effect on the strength of the earth’s magnetic field even on the ground, we are not measuring anything like that.”

Also, “the display was surprisingly bursty.” Photographs taken by ground cameras and NASA’s Polar satellite (also supporting the THEMIS mission) revealed a series of staccato outbursts each lasting 10 minutes or so. “Some of the bursts died out while others reinforced each other and went on to become major events.”

…

“Even more impressive was the substorm’s power. Angelopoulos estimates the total energy of the two-hour event at five hundred thousand billion (5 x 1014) Joules. That’s approximately equivalent to the energy of a magnitude 5.5 earthquake.”

This would seem to be confirmation that there is an “effect” on Earth’s magnetic field. But again, this goes against the conventional paradigm that there is no electric current in space taught by your teachers and you parrot so willingly.

Your next paragraph opens with: “Apart from the non-detection of those [electric] currents…”

I hope by now you have been disabused of the notion that electric currents don’t exist in space. Some “back of the napkin” ‘thought’ experiments don’t stand up to the scientific evidence that radio waves, sychrotron radiation and even x-rays are the “light” that the electrons in electric currents emit.

A star is analogous to a electrical capacitor (the idea of electrical capacitors are taught in electrical engineering). The Sun absorbs electrical current from galactic Birkeland currents and electric charge builds up. In partial summary, Don Scott, states:

“The Sun is surrounded by a plasma cell that stretches far out – many times the radius of Pluto. These are facts not hypotheses. The Sun is at a more positive electrical potential (voltage) than is the space plasma surrounding it – probably in the order of 10 billion volts. Positive ions leave the Sun and electrons enter the Sun. Both of these flows add to form a net positive current leaving the Sun. This constitutes a plasma discharge analogous in every way (except size) to those that have been observed in electrical plasma laboratories for decades. Because of the Sun’s positive charge (voltage), it acts as the anode in a plasma discharge. As such, it exhibits many of the phenomena observed in earthbound plasma experiments, such as anode tufting. The granules observed on the surface of the photosphere are anode tufts (plasma in the arc mode).”

DrFlimmer, “neutron” stars have NOT been directly observed. That is scientific fact. Neutron stars are a theorized body that violates the known nuclear physics law called the “Island of stability” that states neutrons can’t stay packed together. This is another instance where astronomy has had to ignore known laws of physics to invoke their THEORIES of the Universe.

DrFlimmer states: “I just want to conclude with the term “falsify a theory”: It doesn’t mean that a theory must preict it’s own failiure. It is meant that a theory must give predictions that can be tested (that is a difference).”

Yes, agree with your statement. The problem is that science can’t falsify “black holes” because they can’t be observed and you can’t falsify the “big bang” because, well nobody was there at the time and by “big bang” proponents own theory, the physical laws of the Universe have somehow miracuously changed since then, when the “big bang” popped into existence.

Okay, lets be specific: The gravitation only model can’t be expected to be accurate because it doesn’t take into account plasma and electric currents that as previously stated as 10^39 power stronger than gravity.

Holy crap Anaconda, why are you so upset about this? Are you in any of the technical fields that touches upon the astronomy, physics or plasma? According to everything you’ve said so far you don’t have the scientific and technical background and experience on these topics. What’s in this for you?

You’ve shown up on other blogs in the past few days in what appears to be an effort to evangelize plasma cosmology. You come here looking for an argument and when you’ve reeled someone in you bash them for being ignorant, close-minded, parroting faulty science, ignore experimental evidence, pre-judge them as fanatical black-hole proponents and outright insult them. Frankly I think you’re projecting. You’re quite often parroting stuff from the sites you site and frankly display the same disdain for astrophysics I’ve read on them. DrFlimmer has been very civil and detail in his responses to you.

But why? Has the astrophysical community done you wrong somehow? There are a whole bunch of other world issues that actually affect you in your daily life an worth getting upset over. I’m sorry but after reading your last post it does appears that you do have an axe to grind.

Lighten up. This is science, we’re fallible humans and we will be faced with surprises for a long time to come. That’s the nature of the universe.

DrFlimmer, I would have to say that your studies are much more important than dealing with Anaconda and better served as a scientist. But it’s your time and it’s a very deep rabbit hole.

(Thanks, ND But I will stay for a while longer since I have a clear and “easy” task for Anaconda. He doesn’t need to respond to everything I say, just to my very last question and task)

I wanted to start differently, but what the heck. I just visited the link about neutrinos. First of all, we have found all three flavours by now. We are not missing anything. But:

“The electron-nuetrinos that are observed are probably produced by fusion taking place at the solar surface that produces heavy elements (other than hydrogen and helium).”

The sun is an almost perfect blackbody with a maximum at about 500nm what means it has a surface temeprature of about 6500Kelvin (more or less). Hydrogen and helium are the nuclei with the lowest amount of protons, thus their electric charge is the lowest for nuclei (+1e and +2e). Tu fuse them the eclectric repel must be overcome, that need MUCH energy, a gas of 6500Kelvin cannot provide these energies. Therefore even heavier nuclei with an even greater electric charge cannot be fused anywhere near the solar surface. That is IMPOSSIBLE!
But just wait some times, in a few years we WILL be knwoing more since experiments about the flavourchange of neutrinos are underway right now at CERN.

I must admit that I haven’t read the article about the sun entirely. This 10*10^9 Volts just …,well. Have you ever tried to imagine what this number means? No? Good. This enormous amount of charge would disrupt the earth, since we are supposed to be connected to that tremendous potential. That would short-circuit everything on this planet, I guess. I cannot believe someone claims THIS number. 10^10 volts, connected to the earth. Good bye.

Ok, return to physics. And while I was reading your post I was thinking if you ever thought about what is happening in a wire. There we got a metal. That means we have atoms. This also means that we have a conduction band and a valence band which is somehow overloaded and some electrons are in the conduction band and are able to flow around if they are forced to do. How can we force them to move? That tells us the “Lorentz-force”:
F=q(E + v x B)
where q is the charge, E the electrical field, v the velocity, B the magnetic field and since F, E, v and B are vectors, x represents the cross product (probably you have heard of those terms).
A magnetic field doesn’t help much since it only works if the electrons are already moving and then it just forces them on a circular trajectory, so we need an electrical field, in other words a potential difference. Then all electrons start moving in the same direction and the nuclei (positive charges) stay where they are. We gain a current, but why? Because the electrons are moving with respect to the positive charges. This is the only way a current works: Seperation of charges.
In a plasma a current will only flow if create an external electrical field that forces the charges to seperate! If protons and electrons move with the same velocity there is no charge seperation, therefore no current.
We may return to the problem at hand, now.
First: We consider the solar wind. It is claimed by you and your references that the solar wind is transporting protons away from the sun while electrons get attracted. Well, since the sun is supposed to be charge this would be correct and would discharge the sun over time (since it is positvely charged). The problem is that the observed solar wind transports protons and electrons the same way: Away from the sun! Well that’s contradictory to the claim, is it?
Let’s face the sun directly. How can a body of almost freely moving particles be kept together when there is a a potential of 10^10 volts inside of it? Of course, if its distributed all over the sun’s surface we would come up with a potential “density” of about roughly 10^-6 volts/m^2 or about 1 volt/km^2. But: The sun is no solid body as is metal. The surplus protons would repel each other and every one of those would drift away radialy from the sun. How are they kept on it?

Well, let’s get back to the interstellar or intergalactic currents. You stated gladly:

“Yes, I have seen the picture of M87. In fact, it’s one of the strongest pieces of scientific evidence supporting plasma Cosmology.
What’s interesting is that you aren’t even conscious of the fact that you are actually presenting the evidence for Plasma Cosmology yourself. Thanks, I appreciate it, DrFlimmer. ”

No. It’s the perfect counter example. And do you know why? I always tried to tell you that those jets are tremendously bright as is M87. So if there are any of such “currents” (I come back to that term later, again) in interstellar space, probably forming the galactic structures (spiral arms…), they MUST be detectable. You even claim that the sun is connected almost directly with a current from where ever it may come. And again, I ask: Where is it? It should be detectable, probably not as bright as M87 but detectable. But we are not seeing them!
Now, the currents. The jet of M87 contains a plasma rushing through it and revolving around the field lines (producing synchrotron radiation). But the jet is overall neutral! It consists probably of electrons and positrons or electrons and protons. And as I explained above, since they are moving the same way, there is movement with respect to each other – yielding no current! And even if we assume for a moment that there were only electrons. They would create a tremendous electric field to their place of origin, and although protons are about 2000 times more massive than electrons they will get accelerated sooner or later by the electric field. The protons will rush after the electrons trying to catch up to cancel out the electric field. So we gain again an overall neutral flux of particles. No current.

So, of course you state quite correctly: We need the magnetic fields and where do they come from?
You must know, electrodynamics are VERY complex. The basis are Maxwell’s equations, you prabably have seen them. A plasma will behave according to them. But that’s not the point.
The problem is, that you and your references are oversimlifying the “mainstream” models. Electromagnetic forces are taken into account but they are VERY hard to handle since to solve those equations is almost impossible to be done precisly. A computer will help but he also needs quite some time.
The sun is a body of hot gas, say, plasma. In its core the energy is created. That energy is brought up to the surface by radiation and convection. The latter is the reason for the granules, very similar to boiling water, indeed. So convection produces movements of the plasma in a radial direction (up and down) (we can actually see that: the warmer center of the granule is blueshifted while the colder edge is redshifted – no, no cosmological redshift, just the plain old Doppler effect – the the warmer center comes up while the colder edges go down. And take this as a fact, I have made an experiment on that myself!). Then there is the solar rotation. And the solar rotation is not that one of a solid body. The equatorial regions are faster than the polar regions (28 days to 32 days if I remember the numbers correctly). So we have a differential rotation. And that indeed leads to currents, but they are inside the sun, not forced from the outside. We see the effects of that differential and almost chaotic (but not random, since we have an overall movement due to the rotation) movements in the magnetic field lines that pop up out of the surface and get twisted. And sometimes they get twisted so hard that they can actually reconnect – snap, a CME is the result.
This is really a complicated behaviour and not easy to treat even in a computer model. But they work. And probably you have of the new field of “solar seismology” or “helio seismology”. They are detecting sound waves that go through the sun leading to oscillations of the sun’s surface. They are an independent test of the sun’s interior and indeed they recreat our model and have increased our knowledge about the sun. They can almost taken as a proof that the sun has a radiative zone inside and higher up the convective zone, just as we thought it should be.

Let’s go back to your post:

“Charged particles as studied in plasma physics, self-organize into electric currents — that is how plasma got the name, “plasma” because of the self-organizing characteristic which were observed from the start of its study.”

Well. I don’t think that it is possible on earth just to take a ball of gas, make it hot enaugh and watch what happens. Gravity has something to say as well. And also the surroundings of your experiment, your laboratory, your equipment. The plasma could do some damage to that if you don’t take care. You must keep it away from the walls of your box in which you creat your plasma. And how can you do it? First of all, keep it thin, since then it is not able to do much damage and can be heated more easily. Second: You must enclose it. And how can you do it? With electromagnetic fields (in a big way this is about to be done in France with the ITER experiment). So you have external fields and I told you already what that means. I am not surprised that you get some nice “self-organizing” effects.

“DrFlimmer states: “If it really depends on age than ALL lines must be different for any atom since they have different ages OR if we assume their age is all the same EVERY atom in the entire universe must have the same lines, hence no redshift! That’s a paradox, is it not?”
This statement suggests you don’t understand the concept. It’s not an atom by atom phenomenon, as I understand it, but rather a function of the energy level of the galactic body that is why the ‘parent’ galaxy has a lower redhift value that the quasar, the ‘parent’ is less energetic than the expelled quasar.”

Sorry, but I referred to what YOU were telling me, that it would be an effect of age and not of distance. And now you come up with energy levels of galaxies. Is this the strange quantum mechanical effect that is supposed to rule the galaxies what we had earlier in this discussion? Since, indeed, I have no clue what this could possibly be about I stop commenting on this point. But it sounds really strange…

“Yes, that is exactly Plasma Cosmology’s point. Electrons are not visble, here, on Earth or anywhere else, the electromagnetic energy they release from an excited energy state is what is “visible” or detectable. So the fact that synchrotron radiation is released by the “jet” is evidence that an electric current is flowing out the jet.”

Yes, we had that. And I said almost exactly that. But since we can clearly detect jets, I ask once more: WHERE ARE THE OTHER CURRENTS YOU CLAIM TO EXIST? Since we almost agree on the behaviour of jets that they shine because of electrons moving around field lines, the other claimed currents (to/from the sun, through interstellar space) must be detectable. Jet’s like the on of M87 are proove of nothing since it just aims out of the galaxy not giving a shape to anything. But your claimed currents are supposed to give a shape to an entire galaxy and the creation of stars: WHERE ARE THEY? Since there must be many we should have seen them already in many pictures, shouldn’t we?
You are accusing me not to answer on everything. Well. I have just one question for you, you can answer me: Where are those currents, shaping an entire galaxy? Show me a picture that clearly shows a current forming a spiral arm, or something like that – a jet is no proove of that claims since the “mainstream” standard model of quasars includes them in exactly the same way.

So. To clearify something. Probably you make a jump that I say that there currents. Inside the sun for example (not to or from the sun, since the solar wind plasma is not really behaving as a current. The magnetic fields it takes with it are “frozen” lines from the sun, a quite understood mechanism). But again: Where are the BIG ones I mentioned above. THEY are the basis of your model since are supposed to give the shape to everything. Where are THEY? Again, don’t show me any jet – I won’t take this as a proove that currents are shaping a spiral arm. Whar you must give me for example, is a picture of a galaxy where I can clearly identify the currents (since they must be powerful and bright) and that those currents are actually “aligned” with the spiral arms. I will wait and see.

DrFlimmer asks: “[D]o you accept that GR is a theory that works and makes good predictions? You must say Yes since there are several tests mentioned above.

Your class on General Relativity has made you forget the scientfic method — theories are only theories, they are not reality itself.

There are several observations which are consistent with General Relativity. And there are several observations which contradict General Relativity (remember, it only takes one falsification to invalidate a theory).

I’ll not dispute the GPS “proof” at this point.

DrFlimmer states: “One prediction of GR are gravitational lenses. They were predicted long before we had any observation of them.”

Have you ever considered the possibility that because they were predicted long before, there was a ‘confirmational bias’ to find them?

Einstein Ring or Einstein Cross, it seems to be a wide net you are casting to convince yourself of the gravitational lensing theory.

We will have to agree to disagree on this issue. It seems that you must be studying them at present as part of your GR course because you seem fixated on that issue. I’ve offered evidence and reasoning and you can research Halton Arp’s work and the images and reasoning which are the basis of his conclusions.

It seems your course on GR has made you rather fervent about that issue. The “faith” of a true believer — problem with a “true believer” is that no amount of contradictory evidence will dissuade them.

I was going to hold this comment back to the end but it seems appropriate to go ahead and make it now.

You clearly have made statements and expressed ideas that demonstrate you don’t understand plasma physics or electrical phenomenon or the underlying theories for each. I would advise you to suspend judgment regarding a theory you hadn’t even heard about until three days ago.

What the above comment boils down to in my opinion is this: “I believe in General Relativity theory (fervently), so, any theory that knocks or contradicts General Relativity is suspect in my book. “Big bang”, “black hole” theory has problems like requiring “dark matter” to keep it from being falsified. But that’s what everybody, here, at school, including my teachers subscribe to. I may have some uncomfort with “dark matter”, but the alternative is to discard all I’ve been taught about astronomy. If the teachers in astronomy believe in “dark matter” that’s good enough for me.

DrFlimmer states: “EU/PC has many weaknesses as I have shown several times, because I was able to disprove almost every claim you and your links made.”

DrFlimmer, you are way too self-congradulatory in your pronouncements.

Actually, what you have demonstrated is that your grasp of the concepts are weak. What’s amusing is that in one passage you “proved” the existence of electric current (the passage where you cite galaxy M87) by describing synchrotron radiation and you didn’t even know it — that’s how little grasp of the subject matter you have.

So, again, I would advise you to keep an open-mind and have reasonable scepticism toward all theories.

Now to your January 11th, 6:07 pm comment:

DrFlimmer states: “But I wasn’t told to believe anything in my studies.” You’re naive. Students generally only ask questions about the material the teacher provides and the material itself and the teacher’s lecture and discussion is what frames the students’ questions — it’s the rare student who challenges the teacher about material that the teacher isn’t covering or discussing.

DrFlimmer are you one of those rare students who challenges a ‘prof’ on material not covered in the class syllabus?

It’s possible, but I doubt it.

DrFlimmer states: “Believe it or not, I am not a fan of “dark matter” and “dark energy”.

But at the end of the day, you “suck” it up anyway because to reject “dark matter” or “dark energy” is to falsify the gravitational model, or should I say, General Relativity theory, and we can’t have that can we? Oh, no, we just can’t have that…so you’ll keep applauding the emperor’s new clothes just the same as if he wasn’t actually buck naked.

(This may reqire some repetition from my earlier comment, but you made a number of serious errors which can’t slip past unremarked.)

DrFlimmer states: “I probably start with some basics about plasmas: As the link states correctly a plasma is a gas where the electrons are ripped apart from the nuclei. This is due to heat. So we need high temperatures (a few thousand Kelvin) to create plasmas. That means the particles (electrons and nuclei) are moving due to their heat. Such a movement is RANDOM.”

“…plasma is a gas where the electrons are ripped apart from the nuclei.”

This is a gross overstatement. Atomic nuclei will readily give up electrons. Have you ever rubbed cat fur onto a glass rod in physics class? If so, then you would know that the fur readily gives up electrons onto the smooth glass rod.

There are numerous ways for electrons to be removed from atomic nuclei with out “ripping”. As a physics major you should know better. So why use the word “ripped”? To falsely leave the implied impression that electrons are difficult to remove from atomic nuclei — actually, electrons can be removed quite easily from nuclei depending what element it’s to be removed from, and what technique is used to remove the electrons. Of course, electric current removes electrons very easily.

DrFlimmer states: “This is due to heat.” There are other methods as well that don’t require heat.

DrFlimmer states: ” So we need high temperatures (a few thousand Kelvin) to create plasmas.”

Sorry, completely false. Your statement would only be true if you were creating pure plasma in an Earth environment where high heat can be required, but as you stated, ionized charged particles can be considered such if as little as 1% of the matter is ionized into charged particles. Simple low temperature friction can create ionization into charged particles. Your statement I quoted above is misleading, as any kid who has rubbed a balloon on a carpet knows (electrostatic particles are inonized, charged particles).

DrFlimmer states: “To gain a current we must ALIGN the movements of the electrons.”

But that’s where your ignorance of the subject of plasma physics prevents you from understanding that plasma is self-oranizing into electric currents because plasma undergoes charge-seperation as demonstrated in the laboratory. The charges tend to line up as a natural consequence of plasma dynamics. Again, a physics student that had a basic understanding of plasma physics would know that — you don’t.

DrFlimmer states: “Heat won’t give us such conditions.” True. It’s not the heat per se, but the charge-speration that self-organizes into electric currents.

DrFlimmer states: “Still we have no (overall) currents.”

Of course, the discussion proceeding this conclusion ignores all the pictures and images in the Lew Rockwell article: Review the pictures see how they are all consistent with electric currents and plasma dynamics and have been all demonstrated in the plasma laboratory:

In deed, take note of the two pictures one directly over the top of one another, captioned: “Sub-millimeter-size tornadoes of current produced by the Plasma Focus, a fusion research device, compared to a Hubble image of the planetary nebula NGC 6751″

How is this possible that both pictures can be so similar, yet on completely different scales? Because electric phenomenon is scale independent. Plasma phenomenon is scale independent to at least 14 orders of magnitude.

DrFlimmer, you have to deal with those pictures in the article and their demonstrated electrical characteristics. To ignore the pictures as you did after being so image conscious earlier (when they were “your” pictures) is telling that you have no explanation why these galactic phenomenon can be so easily explained by electric principles. You silence in the face of evidence (the pictures) is as damning as any weak explanation you might make.

DrFlimmer states: “So. All we need for electric currents to occure and reveal their power are external electric fields – where do they come from? Let’s turn to your link:

“Even in a plasma comprising just one charged particle in 10,000 – which would be typical of the interstellar clouds of dust and gas from which stars are formed –”

Well. Why should there be such a particle? Everything we observe is that we always have equal amounts of charge – everywhere!”

DrFlimmer, you have already admitted there is plasma all over the Universe. The above sentence sugesting there is no plasma (no charged particles) is silly and self-contradicting — you are doing intellectual “backflips” to avoid the observations and measurements that are consistent with electric currents in space.

DrFlimmer: “So I consider that the odds that the netcharge of a gascloud if not zero is essentially zero.”

Again, stick you head in the sand and ignore the pictures and images of phenomenon across the Universe that are consistent with charge particles and electric currents in space:

Let’s go over your worst errors:

Electrons can’t be “seen” directly, but from controlled laboratory experiments, science knows that electrons in an electric current will give off radio waves, x-rays and synchrotron radiation is specifically given off by electric currents. We know that magnetic fields are only known to be created by electric currents and you have admitted magnetic fields are observed all over the Cosmos.

Hot neutral gas does not give off x-rays or radio waves only plasma in an electric current does.

“The new NICMOS data show the glow from ionized hydrogen gas as well as a multitude of stars. Hubble reveals an important population of stars with strong stellar winds, signified by excess emission from ionized gas at one infrared wavelength (1.87 microns) compared to another slightly different wavelength (1.90 microns).”

“The new NICMOS data show the glow from ionized hydrogen gas…”

“…signified by excess emission from ionized gas at one infrared wavelength…”

DrFlimmer, still trying to pass iof the false idea that there isn’t any any ionized particles in space or as you stated it: “Why should there be such a [ionized] particle?” And, “Everything we observe is that we always have equal amounts of charge – everywhere!”

These statements are specifically contradicted by the ScienceDaily article — nobody seriously disputes the presence of ionized, charged particles in space. What they deny is electric currents, but as has been already pointed out, magnetic fields only known cause is electric currents.

DrFlimmer presents this quote from the Lew Rockwell article: “And today’s reigning cosmological model, founded on general relativity, is essentially a theory of geometry manifesting itself as gravity.”

And responds: “This sentence clearifys the author’s non-understanding of the matter he thinks he is talking about.”

Sorry,DrFlimmer, but he is quite right — that’s how the theory justifies space-time distortion. Better keep going to class — you’ll get to that chapter in the textbook eventually.

DrFlimmer presents this quote from the Lew Rockwell article: “Pulsars – rapidly varying stellar objects conventionally interpreted as spinning neutron stars – have now been measured to fluctuate at rates that call into question even the power of postulated neutron matter to hold together.”

And then responds: “What fluctuations? Postulated neutron matter? The first thing I don’t have a clue what he means. The second…. neutron matter – yes: neutrons to be precise! They are not postulated. We have even neutron BOMBS on earth (it doesn’t mean I like that we have those) if he questions their existence. And neutron stars do exist.”

The fluctuations are the ocillations of the x-ray pulse, or speed of the x-ray flash. Yes, “postulated” or theorized neutron matter. As stated before, neutron stars are denser than any known object and neutrons won’t stay packed because of the nuclear physics law, known as the “Island of stability.”

Your fervent faith is coming through loud and clear, DrFlimmer.

DrFlimmer states: “THAT is not true! First of all, I talked about red-shift before, please read it again if you like.”

I found your argument most unconvincing in the face of Halton Arp’s contradicotry findings.

DrFlimmer states: “[Quasars give off] X-rays just due to their heat…”

No, there is no scientific evidence for that statement. X-rays are given off due to intense electric currents accelerating the electrons.

DrFlimmer states: “And we have synchrotron radiation. I talked about that in my previous posts, too – just look it up.”

You discussion of synchrotron radiation was embarrassing for you because it demonstrated that you didn’t know that synchrotron radiation is most closely identified with electric currents in space for the reasons YOU described!

DrFlimmer states “Well, THIS is the exact term you will hear from every physicist!” as the mechanism for Birkeland currents — Yes, now that it has been proven , but for decades astronomers thought the auroras where Earth self-generated. Know your astonomical history, DrFlimmer.

This NASA news release needs to be look at again:

NASA Spacecraft Make New Discoveries about Northern Lights
12.11.2007:

“The satellites have found evidence for magnetic ropes connecting Earth’s upper atmosphere directly to the Sun,” says Dave Sibeck, project scientist for the mission at the Goddard Space Flight Center. “We believe that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras.”

A “magnetic rope” is a twisted bundle of magnetic fields organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner’s rope. Spacecraft have detected hints of these ropes before, but a single spacecraft is insufficient to map their 3D structure. THEMIS’s five satellites were able to perform the feat.”

Magnetic fields which only exist in the presence of electric currents, which these bundled filaments that are ubiquitous in the Cosmos.

Sorry, DrFlimmer, you have no scintfic evidence it happens that way at all. All you have is a theory that isn’t supported by any observations.

DrFlimmer, do you believe everything you read in Wikipedia?

I don’t, and I’ve reseached the question. “Black holes have NEVER been directly observed. At best, there is indirect evidence to support their existence, at worst it’s a theoretical “cover your rear end” because without “black holes” the gravitational model is falsified.

DrFlimmer states: “That is the reason why spiral galaxies have those arms – they are brighter than the rest of the disk.”

That is the kookiest speculation I’ve heard out of you yet. No where do they hypothesize that the arms are noting but brighter mass and that galaxies are really evenly spread out disks, but that we can only “see” the arms — your breaking down guy.

See, Astrophysicists Map Milky Way’s Four Spiral Arms
ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2009) — “A research team that has developed the first complete map of the Milky Way galaxy’s spiral arms. The map shows the inner part of the Milky Way has two prominent, symmetric spiral arms, which extend into the outer galaxy where they branch into four spiral arms.”

There is nothing in the story to suggest that the spiral arms are just “brighter material”.

To conclude, keep and open-mind and research.

I didn’t come to my conclusions about either theory based on two days of comments and research. It was an organic process of many months.

After all, I believed like you, at one time, in the “big bang” and “black holes”, but after researching both sides of the scientific controversy, I rejected my old outdated beliefs, that were based on old outdated ideas.

I looked at all the scientific evidence with due reasonable scepticism, but also an open-mind. Again, after many months of research and thinking, I was forced by the weight of the evidence to change my views that had been held for many years.

I am convinced of Plasma Cosmology’s validity, not because I wanted to be, but because I was compelled by the scientfic evidence.

So another theory may come along that is better and matches the theory and the observations and measurements better, but until that time, I am compelled by my devotion to the empirical scientific method to support Plasma Cosmology and reject the gravitational model, a theory that is based on too many assumptions and invented objects and particles.

It’s been falsified too many times.

It’s a 19th century theory.

Plasma Cosmology is a cutting edge, 21st century theory, as cutting edge as the electricity that runs the supercomputers in our civilization.

DrFlimmer, keep an open-mind, it won’t hurt and it may do you a lot of good:-)

1. Cranks overestimate their own knowledge and ability, and underestimate that of acknowledged experts;

2. Cranks insist that their alleged discoveries are urgently important;

3. Cranks rarely, if ever, acknowledge any error, no matter how trivial;

4. Cranks love to talk about their own beliefs, often in inappropriate social situations, but they tend to be bad listeners, and often appear to be uninterested in anyone else’s experience or opinions.

Some cranks exhibit a lack of academic achievement, in which case they typically assert that academic training in the subject of their crank belief is not only unnecessary for discovering “the truth”, but actively harmful because they believe it “poisons” the minds by teaching falsehoods. Others greatly exaggerate their personal achievements, and may insist that some alleged achievement in some entirely unrelated area of human endeavor implies that their cranky opinion should be taken seriously.

Some cranks claim vast knowledge of any relevant literature, while others claim that familiarity with previous work is entirely unnecessary; regardless, cranks inevitably reveal that whether or not they believe themselves to be knowledgeable concerning relevant matters of fact, mainstream opinion, or previous work, they are not in fact well-informed concerning the topic of their belief.

P.S.

5. A total lack of sense of humour — they take themselves to seriously!

I pause before responding because there are obviously folks that would rather not see any comments from this direction at all (the Plasma Cosmology perspective). But if I clammed up, that would be exactly what they want.

DrFlimmer, you raise a serious obstacle to Plasma Cosmology, where or how do the inter-stellar or intra-galactic Birleland currents supply energy to the Sun. And, frankly, I haven’t seen a good answer to that question, yet.

That needs to be addressed — and it’s good you pointed it out.

That’s what good science is about — making reasonable and thoughtful objections — or should I say, questions that need to be answered.

Now, yourself, or likely folks in the peanut gallery are thinking, aha! gotcha! Hardley. How many years has astronomy been looking for “dark matter”? A long time. How long has science had radio telescopes and x-ray telescopes? About 20 years or so of high resolution technology in both Earth based telescopes and satellite based telescopes has been available. And only in the last year were Birkeland currents confimed, and DrFlimmer, you didn’t even know about the discovery.

Obviously, there are unanswered questions about space — I agree, both sides or perspectives should acknowledge there are unanswered questions.

DrFlimmer states: “Therefore even heavier nuclei with an even greater electric charge cannot be fused anywhere near the solar surface. That is IMPOSSIBLE!”

The surface temperature of the Sun is 6500 Kelvin or there abouts, but the corona is a couple of million degrees and the particles and electrons are being accelerated away from the Sun at vast speeds. A couple of million degrees is hot enough for fusion. Throw in the electromagnetic “bottle” of the z-pinch mechanism which self-constricts the matter together and there is a possible overall physical process for fusion, as evinced by the acceleration of the charged partcles from the Sun.

To your further discussion of the Sun, DrFlimmer states: “The surplus protons would repel each other and every one of those would drift away radialy from the sun. How are they kept on it?

Are you familiar with the electrical engineering concept and reality of a capacitor? Stored electrical energy. Also, are you familiar with “double layers”?

Electrical currents form “double layers” that set up a capacitor like formation of electrical energy and currents.

Electrical energy does not have to discharge immediately. There is such a thing as stored electrical capacity.

(The peanut gallery has a point — the discussion has pretty much run its course.)

So let’s close, DrFlimmer, on your final point: Where is the current?

As I tried to explain before, the electrical current, itself, is hard to detect, but there are indirect ways to determine if it’s present. Magnetic fields are only known to occur in the presence of electric currents.

You never addressed the above statement. (I take that back, you stated magnetic field lines are “frozen”. See below — what’s the mechanism for being “frozen”?)

If you can’t refute the above assertion — then you have little choice, but to accept the presence of electric currents.

DrFlimmer states: “The magnetic fields it takes with it are “frozen” lines from the sun, a quite understood mechanism).”

“Frozen” magnetic fields are a well understood mechanism. Care to explain that mechanism.

How do you account for the NASA reports of the ‘magnetic flux events’ (Birkeland currents)? The “ropes” and their magnetic field lines jump and move all around. They are not “frozen” in any sense of the word.

Hannes Alfven, who won the 1970 Nobel Prize in physics — for his work in laboratory plasma physics (and was a pioneer of Plasma Cosmology), developed the field of magnetohydrodynamics, this is where the idea of “frozen” magnetic lines comes from. But Alfven saw that the concept of “frozen” magnetic lines was faulty, so repudiated his earlier idea and warned repeatedly against this interpretation of his theory. (Sadly, astronomers ignored the man who developed the idea; they had their story and they were sticking to it.)

Which makes sense: How do magnetic field lines get “frozen”? What constitutes “frozen”? In reality, it was an interpretation that avoided dealing with electric currents.

But getting back to your question: Where are the currents?

Many electric currents are in dark mode. What is dark mode? Simple enough, there is electric current, but it’s diffuse enough or at such low amperes that it gives no or little radiation at all.

But most of the time, the electrons in an electric current gives off radio waves. Electrons can also give off x-rays if the energy of the electric current is high enough — again, x-rays are only known to be caused by electric current, there is no scientific evidence I’m aware of (enlighten me) that says, “heat alone, if hot enough, will cause x-rays, or radio waves.”

Electric current gives off visible light (in the visible part of the electromagnetic wave spectrum) only in arc mode (lightning is an example).

That should be a hint to sceptics — energy is released from electrons via electromagnetic waves.

Electromagnetic energies are the predominate way that energy interacts in the Universe — not gravity and not heat. Why not gravity? Because gravity is such a weak force in comparison to electromagnetic force. Electromagnetism is 10^39 power stronger than gravity. Gravity by its very nature is static or isometric, gravity could almost be considered “passive,” not dynamic like electromagnetism. Why not heat? Because heat is the lowest level of energy — random atomic vibration. Energy in the lowest state of structure or organization. Electromagnetic energy is a “higher” form of enegy, as opposed to heat, when taking into consideration the Second Law of thermodynamics.

Random atomic vibration (heat) is at the end of the line in terms of types of energy — think about it.

This goes back to my question that you failed to answer: Have you taken a course in plasma physics or electrical engineering?

Professor Don Scott has an analysis of the underlying issue posed by x-ray and radio emissions in space:

1. Radio telescopes see radio waves throughout the cosmos.
2. Radio waves need BOTH magnetic and electric fields in order to exist.
3. Magnetic fields need electric currents in order to exist.
4. We can conclude that electric currents and electric fields exist in deep space.
5. Cosmic rays are accelerated ions.
6. What is the easiest way to accelerate an ion?
7. Answer: By letting it fall through a voltage drop (an electric field) or pump it magnetically.
8. Strong electric fields exist in DLs (double layers) in plasma and magnetic pumping can occur in moving (varying) magnetic fields.
9. Grasping at “bow shocks” as a reason for ion acceleration is an evasive refusal to consider anything electrical.

Radio waves are a product of electromagnetic forces.

Synchrotron radiation is scientfic evidence of electric currents in space.

Anyway, it’s up to you, DrFlimmer, you can put this discussion in the closet of your mind and forget it or you can research with an open-mind AND reasonable scepticism.

It’s up to you.

There are unanswered questions on both sides of the debate.

(That’s the great thing about science — there are always unanswered questions. And as opposed to what the peanut gallery says, I don’t claim to have all the answers.)

As I stated before, I was like you. I believed in the Big Bang and Black Holes, and accepted the idea that Dark Matter and Dark Energy existed, but science hadn’t detected them, yet.

I didn’t hatch out of an egg fully formed, spouting Plasma Cosmology.

My being convinced came about over many months, in an organic process, and, no, nobody twisted my arm, the scientific evidence lead me to be convinced of the theory on my own free will.

I took my own “path”.

Everybody has to take their own “path”.

If the “path” leads to a failed theory — that will be clear enough over time, of that I am certain. Reality will win out, although, we might take a longer time than is necessary to understand reality.

I’ve been going through the crank checklist and going check, check, oh definitely a check, check…

Absolutely amazing. He could not talk about the hard evidence in favor of GR because his play book (PC websites) had nothing on it (otherwise he would be showing us how “wrong” the GPS system and Cassini probe results are). He has no concept that he does not have the background and knowledge to understand the concepts he’s spouting.

“there is no scientific evidence I’m aware of (enlighten me) that says, “heat alone, if hot enough, will cause x-rays, or radio waves.” ”

I will enlighten you. I would have already done, but, I don’t know why, this page sucked in my post I wrote this midday being at my university awaiting my course about stellar birth (a well understood thing, btw, of course there are open questions, but it works quite well, even with gravity, but that’s not what I want to address).
So, why can I say that heat is the cause of X- or radio waves?
Have you ever heard of the guy named Planck? He “invented” (he really thought it was a mathematical trick, an invention ) the idea that light is not only a continous wave but instead is transferred in little amounts or packages of energy, he called it a quantum. Indeed that was the start of quantum mechanics, a revelotion to physics by that time. Why did he need it? He created a formula to explain and to describe the light spectrum of a blackbody. A blackbody is a perfect absorber and hence also a perfect emitter (that sounds strange, indeed, but it’s true). There were some difficulities to describe the spectrum with classical thermodynamics and Planck’s mathematical trick solved the problem.
He got a formula that perfectly describes the spectrum of a blackbody. And he found that this spectrum ONLY depend on the temperature of the blackbody. The higher the temperature the more energetic is the maximum of the spectrum. Probably you heard about Wien’s displacement law. That is exactly that.
What it states is: If an object is very cold the transmitted energy is low (actually the body will shine in the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum). If an object is very hot it gives up tremendous amounts of energy in the high end parts of the spectrum (X-rays). The sun shines in the visible part. Your body gives up radiation in the infrared part. So anything in this universe gives up energy – electromagnetic light – due to its temperature. We call that thermal radiation. And the emitted spectra are very characteristic! Just look up “Planck curves” or something like that.

AND we can distinguish these spectra from spectra of other processes like synchrotron radiation. It’s very easy, since synchrotron radiation follows a power law with a power of about -0.6. That is very specific and, indeed, looks very different to a Planck curve.

So. There you have the process how heat generates energy! And we can distinguish them as I said. So let’s take a look at a Quasar. What we see is a thermal spectrum with a maximum that goes up into X-rays. And we detect a spectrum that follows a power-law. That is the synchrotron radiation, which comes from the jet. But how can we creat such tremendous temperatures? That is a very good question. And the only answer to this question is (since it is thermal radiation for what currents and magnetic fields play no role!) an accretion disk around a black hole. Nothing else is known to me.

And btw: This flaws the second point of Don Scott. I guess you know what that means!

“Have you taken a course in plasma physics or electrical engineering?”

The course was named “Introduction to plasma physics”. But I admit that I didn’t take care a lot on that course since my schedule was very full and I just took the Credit Points and went by. A mistake and when I have time I will go deeplier in the subject. But I still have studied it a bit. The counterquestion would be if you ever studied physics at all or if it has “just” been some kind of a home work .

But btw: I talked with my prof today. And he had some nice assumptions .
If I understand you correctly, you say that the sun has a positive netcharge, right? What about the other stars? Do they have a positive charge, too? Wouldn’t they repel each other, destroying the galaxy? There must be some negative charges somewhere to balance that!

“Many electric currents are in dark mode. What is dark mode? Simple enough, there is electric current, but it’s diffuse enough or at such low amperes that it gives no or little radiation at all.”

I cannot resist, but this sounds to me somehow like “dark matter”. Such currents would be far too weak to hold entire galaxies together since every current (save jets) must be in dark mode, otherwise we would have seen them by now (our telescopes are VERY good/sensitive in these days). And one of your claims was that currents build up the spiral arms – those currents must be in dark mode, too. I would think that they are very weak then, probably too weak to account for the rotation of the galxies.

But, apropos telescopes. My prof also told me something about Halton Arp. He was quite famous some years ago and his theorys have been debated in the scientific community. But there is a reason why they are not debated anymore:
Yes, there are those galaxies with different red shifts that seem to be interacting. But: Isn’t it possible that this is just coincidence and it is a matter of projection? We are looking at a 2-dim sphere. But what we are looking at is 3-dim space. We are missing the third dimension! Isn’t that a possibility?
Another thing is that Arp thought he found some “oscillations” in red shift (or something like that, sorry, I do not remember perfectly what my prof said – but since you are familiar with Arp’s theory you probably know what I mean ). The problem is that he had “very” old databases compared with today. With new and more precise measurments we were able to find that those “oscillations” are actually not true. They were a matter of bad statistics – he had too few and too less precise measurments that are, say, outdated today.

“Besides emitting a continuous stream of plasma called the solar wind, the sun periodically releases billions of tons of matter called coronal mass ejections. These immense clouds of material, when directed toward Earth, can cause large magnetic storms in the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere. Such space weather can affect the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems.”

“Space weather can produce solar storm electromagnetic fields that induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines, causing wide-spread blackouts and affecting communication cables that support the Internet. Severe space weather also produces solar energetic particles and the dislocation of the Earth’s radiation belts, which can damage satellites used for commercial communications, global positioning and weather forecasting. Space weather has been recognized as causing problems with new technology since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century.”

This article is clear and unambiguous: The Sun emits “plasma” and “electromagnetic fields”. These are not “frozen,” but are dynamic and changing.

DrFlimmer, in a previous comment on this post you stated that the magnetosphere should be disturbed by the Birkeland currents emitted from the Sun and received by the Earth and that they should be able to be observed and measured.

This article from SpaceDaily shows that, in deed, the Earth’s magnetosphere is disturbed by Birkeland currents.

More important, you stated that this “solar wind” would be neutral, not electrically charged — NASA and mainstream science disagree with you.

In deed, the flow of particles from the Sun to the Earth are chargede particles.

That is why the flow causes electromagnetic disturbances in the Earth’s electromagnetosphere.

That is why it disrupts the electrical functions of Man’s technology that rely on electricity and electrical currents.

A neutral flow of particles would not have this effect.

Yet, apparently the threat is catastrophic.

The above linked article states:

“A catastrophic failure of commercial and government infrastructure in space and on the ground can be mitigated through raising public awareness, improving vulnerable infrastructure and developing advanced forecasting capabilities. Without preventive actions or plans, the trend of increased dependency on modern space-weather sensitive assets could make society more vulnerable in the future.”

But let me offer a couple more observations:

Science acknowledges electrical phenomenon in near space:

“Plasmas in the lab form cellular structures separated by thin layers of opposite charge called double layers. Does the same thing happen in nebulas? That’s a tough question to answer, because the only known way detect a double layer is to send a probe through it, and nebulas are far beyond the reach of our spacecraft. But everywhere we’ve sent probes in our solar system, we’ve found cellular structures separated by double layers, just as we found in the plasma lab. We call these structures magnetospheres, magnetotails, bow shocks, comet heads and tails.”

Hannes Alfvén says, “… it is unpleasant to base far-reaching conclusions on the existence of a structure which we cannot detect directly. But the alternative is to draw far-reaching conclusions from the assumption that in distant regions, the plasmas have properties which are drastically different from what they are in our own neighborhood. This is obviously far more unpleasant … ”

You started your post with a misinterpretation of DrFlimmer’s comments. What I got from his posts was not that there are not any electric currents anywhere in space, but that there are not interstellar or intergalactic electric currents. Big difference.

Also, I’m curious. You said earlier:

I’m not a scientist, rather a scientfic observer, an “enthusiast” would be a fair characterization.

What training do you have in science in general, and physics, plasma physics, cosmology, astrophysics and electricity in particular? Have you completed any courses of study?

Heh. Tongue-in-cheek comments aside, I actually am curious about his academic background and asked with quite honest intent. As an outside reader of the exchanges, I think it is only fair to know the respective training of both sides. DrFlimmer has already stated his background.

Whatever personal feelings or ideas I may have, I’m just trying to keep a civil tone.

I know, but he’s been rather arrogant from the get go and I let that get to me and shouldn’t have. It’s been hard to take him seriously.

In one of his exchanges he said:

“ND states: “In other words you don’t have the scientific background and knowledge and experimental experience to actually understand whether the theories and ideas talked about makes sense or are bogus.”

Wrong there pardner.”

But did not clarify how I’m wrong about this. He has said he is not a scientist but does not clarify how he has scientific experience by this comment.

Oddly I’m still curious who this person is myself. High schooler? College student? Senior citizen with too much time on his hand (assuming a ‘he’ here).

Anaconda, you are misreading my post and you refer to post that are, say, long gone.
I have admitted recently that my statement that there are “no” currents is probably not accurate. Since the sun does have a magnetic field. And if you consider the sun to be “in space” than you are right. And the interplanetary magnetic field is powerd by the sun. The interstellar field is powered elsewhere. All right, all right!
But here comes the important point: WHERE ARE THE OTHER CURRENTS?
You stated:

“DrFlimmer, you raise a serious obstacle to Plasma Cosmology, where or how do the inter-stellar or intra-galactic Birleland currents supply energy to the Sun. And, frankly, I haven’t seen a good answer to that question, yet.
That needs to be addressed — and it’s good you pointed it out.”

Well, nothing more to say on this point, so why are up to it, again, since we debated it?

BUT. One last questions, since after I told you how X-rays and radio-waves can, INDEED, be produced by heat, you fell back to the currents and charges:
Do you know what the little word “OVERALL” means?
Almost everything in this univerese is OVERALL neutral!!!! The sun, the solar wind, you, a jet, a plasma. THEY ARE [b]>>OVERALL<<[/b] NEUTRAL.

I don’t think I’m misreading your comments, in fact, after you grudgingly admitted that electrical currents “probably” exist in space (between the Sun and the Earth), you go on about the Universe being “OVERALL neutral!!!!.” Did I get the number of exclamation marks right?:-)

DrFlimmer states: “And if you consider the sun to be “in space” than you are right.”

DrFlimmer, where do you consider the Sun to be? Timbuktu?:-)

You seem to be having a serious case of cognitive dissonance.

The NASA reports make patently clear that electric currents exist between the Sun and the Earth. What do you consider the 93 million mile distance between the Sun and the Earth to be other than, well…space?

Care to explain.

DrFlimmer states: “But here comes the important point: WHERE ARE THE OTHER CURRENTS?”

And I acknowledged that is a good question (I’ll get to that in a latter part of this comment).

I guess I could retort: “WHERE IS THE DARK MATTER?”

But I won’t.

I guess somehow the space between the Sun and the Earth is “special space” (it has a nice ring to it) and is unique and nowhere else in the Universe are there circumstances like the space between the Sun and the Earth?

Again, Care to explain?

DrFlimmer states: “BUT. One last question, since after I told you how X-rays and radio-waves can, INDEED, be produced by heat, you fell back to the currents and charges:”

Man has the ability in our science laboratories to generate tremendously high temperatures, but temperature (heat) by itself hasn’t been demonstrated to generate x-rays or radio waves in the laboratory.

Only electromagnetic currents have been demonstrated in the laboratory to generate x-rays and radio waves. Or should I say wave/particles?

Your stated theory is one possibility that has never been proven in the laboratory (although, I do appreciate your stating the theory) by experimental testing that I’m aware of. The other theory that I present, on the other hand, has been demonstrated by experimental testing in the laboratory: Electric current does generate x-rays and radio waves.

So, we have two alternative possibilities: One is a theory that has never been demonstrated in the laboratory and one is a theory that HAS BEEN demonstrated in the laboratory.

Which theory is more likely?

The dismissal of the possibility of electric currents in space hardly seems like a proper scientific conclusion where the proven theory is dismissed and the unproven theory is accepted.

That’s the antithesis of the empirical scientific method of observation and measurement.

So, DrFlimmer, you are stating a theory as fact — that’s a no, no in science (I’ll gladly stand corrected if you can link me a scientific paper reporting that your theory has been actually demonstrated in the laboratory by experimental testing).

And, again, synchrotron radiation is given off by electrons excited in an electromagnetic current (electric current) which has been demonstrated in the laboratory by experimental testing and synchrotron radiation has been observed and measured in space.

Is it a logical and reasonable conclusion that electric currents are causing the synchrotron radiation in space?

Yet, you seem to be saying: “Ignore the man behind the curtin.”

I won’t do that and neither will others exercising reasonable scepticism.

You have written “OVERALL” and “NEUTRAL” in your last comment as if that is a substitute for logical, reasoned argument…by experimental observation and measurement.

Capital letters are no substitute.

And you offer no scientific evidence, while I have offered several examples of scientific evidence of electric currents in space by way of observation and measurement: The NASA reports, the photographic pictures consistent the known behavior of electric currents as demonstrated in the plasma laboratory, and the detection of synchrotron radiation and radio waves in space.

Plasma by definition is not neutral; it is made up of charged particles, as it the solar wind and jets. As I stated in my directly previous comment the magnetosphere and the magnetotail are structures made up of charged particles in a state of charge seperation in the form of double layers.

Scientific evidence supports my position.

But I promised you I would take up your question about where the other electric currents are? I take that to mean the electric currents that power the Sun (according to Electric Universe theory) comming into the Sun from the rest of the galaxy. I have given it some thought — so, I appreciate your question. You don’t mind a ‘thought’ experiment do you?

It’s a matter of where the observations and measurements are taken from.

Science had a difficult time collecting evidence of the electrical nature of the interaction between the Sun and the Earth until science had satellites that circled the Earth. That is why the conventional gravitation (only) model theorized that the Earth’s auroras were self-generated by the Earth with no electrical interaction between the Sun and the Earth; we now know that to be a wrong theory.

May I suggest a hypothesis? Are you familiar with the concept of the heliopause? That is the extend of the plasma flow of the solar wind and extends well beyond Pluto. Beyond that are plasma flows from other stars and the galactic “electrical” winds. While the Sun is a positive anode according to Electric Universe, the Galactic wind has more positive charge than the Sun. At the heliopause/galactic wind boundary there is another double layer much more powerful than the double layer of the Earth’s magnetosphere. Just as it is difficult to detect electric current flowing into the Earth inside the Earth’s magnetosphere, it is difficult to detect electric currents coming into the Sun much larger magnetosphere. The Sun has an equator and it has poles. I suggest the Sun works much the same way in relation to the galactic Birkeland currents as does the Earth in relation to the Sun’s Birkeland currents.

Electric charge capacity builds up at the Sun’s double layer magnetosphere (the heliopause), then Electrical energy (electric current) discharges through the “leaky capacitor” and flows to the poles of the Sun much like the Birkeland currents flow to the poles of the Earth causing auroras.

To detect this current, if it exists, yes, it’s only a hypothesis, Man would need satellite detection technology on the galactic side of the heliopause boundary much like Man needed satellites outside the Earth’s magnetosphere to detect the electrical currents flowing from the Sun to the Earth.

That would require a technological leap on the order of several magnitudes to be able to send a satellite that far out which could still send observation and measurement back to Earth.

Also, I’ll add this thought: Has science been looking for signs of electrical currents flowing in towards the Sun? It’s harder to detect something you’re not actively looking for.

I want to say, I appreciate your intellectual curiousity — that is important to science in general — and you are to be commended personally. It’s not always easy, particularly when the new information goes against previously held beliefs or scientific convictions.

But if scientific convictions were never challeneged then science wouldn’t advance.

I know I was uncompromising about the presence of electric currents in the “near space” around the Earth and between the Earth and the Sun, to your exasperation, and that was because the scientific evidence is overwhelming in support of that proposition.

But isn’t it true that science works on the assumption of the universal applicability of the physical laws of nature?

That brings up the concept of “limitation?”

What do I mean?

It’s the idea that once a process or mechanism of the natural world has been acknowledged and understood as happening, then it is assumed to happen elsewhere in the natural world, unless a specific limitation can be identified that restricts that process or mechanism to a specific region or is limited to a specific extent.

So, since electric currents have been observed, identified, and measured in “near space” around the Earth and in the space between the Sun and the Earth, according to established scientific principles, your contention that electric currents don’t exist anywhere else needs to be supported by specifically spelled out limitations.

Or your position is untenable.

The dynamic relationship between the Sun and the Earth is a model for the dynamic relationships between other celestial bodies.

At this point, I refer back to the pictures of cosmic phenomenon I linked which presented characteristics consistent with electrical, plasma dynamics as demonstrated in plasma physics laboratories. For the most part you failed to discuss (M87 is the exception) these pictures. The “size” of these phenomenon are much larger than individual star systems, indeed, some are literally hundreds of light years in scope and size. And these phenomenon have been observed to emit electromagnetic wave/partics consistent with the presence of electric currents.

So, I ask you, what is the specific limitation that limits electric currents to Earth’s “near space” and the space between the Sun and the Earth?

I appreciate the the links. The dictionary you link to has this caveat, “Source edition 1965.” There has been a lot of advances in understanding plasma in since 1965 (1970 is when Hannes Alfven won the Nobel Prize in physics, for his work in laboratory plasma physics). It’s not clear if the entry you cited is updated, but I’ll take it that it has been updated.

And I’ll take the entry as being accurate as far as it goes.

Plasma is subject to many different forces and circumstances that set up charge seperation which is necessary to generate electric currents. Please refer to this additional Wikipedia entry for “double layers (plasma)”.

You’ll note upon reading the first link the words ‘charge seperation’, it is a basic definition, but it makes these statements:

“Double layers may be found anywhere that plasmas are found…”

“[Double layers can have] Large potential drops and layer separation may accelerate electrons to relativistic velocities (ie close to the speed of light), and produce synchrotron radiation.”

“And although plasmas are highly electrically conductive, a property that tends to neutralised charges, double layers may self-generate, or form when two plasma regions with different properties come into contact.”

It is the latter phrase that is important for this discussion: “double layers may self-generate, or form when two plasma regions with different properties come into contact.”

This concept that when two plasma regions with different properties come into contact cause a self-generation of double layers, therefore, electric currents are formed, is the point I was raising in the discussion.

As the Wikipedia entry on double layers (plasma) points out, there are numerous ways for plasma to form double layers with electric charge potential (I count over ten different ways for plasma to form double layers).

So, the second citation, ND, you provide on plasma simply doesn’t fully delineate all the ways plasma can form double layers, i.e., electric current.

But, I will acknowledge that at “some” level plasma is neutral, however, to generally characterize plasma as neutral is misleading in any discussion about dynamic environments on Earth and in space.

Let’s put it this way: Theoretically plasma can be an “isolated body” and be neutral. But practically speaking that is rarely the case, so, in practicable terms, I would submit it’s fair to say plasma is inherently a body of matter that is electrically charged and is capable of producing electric currents.

ND, do you see the subtle distinction I am trying to make? (actually, it’s not subtle at all.)

@ Todd W.:

As this type question has been put to me several times in various fashions, I will attempt to give an accounting of myself in this regard.

As I previously responded to a question of this type: “I’m not a scientist, rather a scientfic observer, an “enthusiast” would be a fair characterization.”

More specifically, I haven’t taken university courses in the fields you mention, but I do have advanced training and experience in a field of logic and reason (although not in mathematics). I combine this training and experience with an interest or as I, myself, stated, “enthusiasm” for scientific questions.

I adhere to the empirical scientific method to the best of my ability and apply the knoweldge I have attained through my personal research to the best of my ability. I try to be objective and exercise an open-mind and resonable scepticism to the best of my ability.

I engage in discussion to learn from others and express my opinions.

And, yes, I engage in discussion to challenge opinions of others when I disagree with those opinions based on my knowledge of the circumstances and facts involved in that particlular discussion. I do my best to remain objective and civil, but I’m human with human frailties and weaknesses, so occasionally I’ll lapse, but I’m conscious that to be persuasive is not to be perpetrually derisive with an interlocuter (again, sometimes to make a point, one does have to “break eggs to make an omelet.”)

I’m happy to have interlocuters breakdown my reasoning and positions if the circumstances merit, because that is how we (I) learn and advance in our understanding of ideas and principles and facts and evidence. Obviously, I’m like everbody else, I don’t like it when I’m unfairly attacked, but then again, I have a pretty thick skin.

I hope this gives you some insight into where I’m coming from.

Logic, reason, and “commom sense” are all valuable skills in the scientific endeavor.

The principles of the empirical scientific method are not hard to understand, but the application of these principles can be difficult due to the frailties of the human condition.

Those that are interested in scientific questions strive put aside the human characteristics that cloud our ability to be objective when assessing scientific observations and measurements.

Anaconda, if you consider me to be stack with my views (what is fair from your point of view) I blame you to do the same with your views (resulting in a never ending debate ).

To say that heat is not able to produce X-rays is, say, provocative. The sun is an almost perfect blackbody, we measured its spectrum in very high detail. The sun gives of X-rays and radio waves due to heat (though the output is not high since in the high-energy part of the Planck curve is very steep and the way out to the radio waves is quite long). But take a look at the Corona. The Corona is incredibly hot! And it gives of X-rays. And as I pointed out: We can distinguish between thermal radiation and synchrotron radiation (and bremsstrahlung). And the Corona emits thermal radiation!

To your “thought experiment” (interesting that you made one since you object it in connection with GR). You must know we sent a probe around the poles of the sun (Ulyssis – hopefully the spelling is correct). The poor thing is freezing to death by now, but it gives us some insights, because it measured the flux of particles. And as far as I know it never ever detected any significant incoming flux.

You are right with your statement that there is neither a direct proove of dark matter nor of those currents. The problem is, since those currents should behave very similar to any known currents, they should have revealed themselves already but they didn’t. They probably hide in a “dark mode” but I must say that this is unlikely since they are supposed to hold an entire galaxy together which means (even with probably 39 orders of magnitude more “power”) they must be quite strong. And diffuse currents (you said something like that) are neither powerful nor would I consider them to be very long-lasting (they should be consumed by the interstellar medium I guess).
Dark matter has the “advantage” that we have no other idea how to detect it aside from gravity – so it can hide from detection (probably for ever, who knows). This is not very encouraging, of course. The future will tell.

I wanted to add something to GR: You deny it for some reasons but one is that it is only a “geometric” thing that is considered as a force. First of all, all we know from SR is that we live in a four-dimensional space-time. MANY quantum mechanical effects are not explainable without SR (i.e., the spin of an electron is a direct consequence of SR!). So, if SR is wrong more or less all of quantum mechanics would be wrong! But quantum mechanics is the youngest (big) physical theory but it is the best tested theory we ever had! Since QM works we can consider SR to work!
GR is a generalization of SR (hence the name, duh). It is quite too complicated to go into the details but the resoning for a geometric interpretation of gravity is not so bad. Probably you should read a good book about it (“Spacetime and Geometry” by Sean Carroll is quite good!).
And thought experiments are VERY good reasoning. Even Galileo (I think it was him) used it to show that ALL things on earth fall towards the earth with the same velocity/acceleration.

And one more thing about the sun (and stars in general). The “mainstream” opinion about how stars work include every one of the four fundamental forces: Gravity to suck in all the material (10^30 kg and more is quite a bit). Electromagnetic forces to provide the pressure that the star doesn’t become a black hole in the first place. If the heat is high enaugh to accelerate the particles to high speeds in the core to overcome the Coulomb wall we need the strong force to stick the combined protons together. Then we need the weak force to change some protons into neutrons in order to get helium. In this process we release positrons and an electron neutrino AND a little bit of energy since two combined particles are a little less massive than both being seperated (and as we know E=mc^2).
Then we can calculate how the energy is transferred to the star’s surface and that it was transformed on the way from gamma rays down to visible light (and fractions of other wavelength in order to gain the Planck spectrum).
How a star works is a very good theory since everything is well understood and can be measured. And the measurments say: It works! I think it is a VERY tough task to present a theory that is equally precise in discibing the light and particle fluxes.

The first one is very blurry since the stars are “too” big. Stars are dots in every picture we make, so I conclude the picture is quite enhanced. This tells me that the seen structures are not necessarily as big as they appear. It is possible that it is a jet that is not perfectly aligned with the rotational axis. It could be a neutron star or a T Tauri star that is located quite below the picture’s edge.

NGC 6751 is rather circular, not very common for planetary nebulae. But only because it looks like something it doesn’t mean it is the same. So, since stars give off a lot of particles through their stellar wind (we debated the sun’s quite long) the particles should be accumulated next to the border to interstellar space (like the region of the heliopause). In the late years close to its doom a star gives off much larger quantities of material and they can be very different in size and density, thus their velocity differs. As Phil recently posted again, a doomed star gives off large amounts of UV photons (due to heat btw) that are able to ionise the particles and during recombination they radiate in very special frequencies, so we can distinguish between different elements. Since the distribution of elemts can vary due to the density variations I mentioned the planetary nebulae come by in very different looks. It is really possible that a planetary nebula looks exactly that way just by coincidence. And since there is just presented ONE planetary nebula to look like the plasma machine I would consider it to BE coincidence. (It is rather possible, btw, that magnetic fields played a role in shaping it, but I do not take it as a proof of currents (to emerge FROM the star; inside of it – of course, we need the magnetic fields). Since other planetary nebulae can look very differently from this one this is another statement against the theory of the plasma machine, bacause if currents would be a key component planetary nebulae should look alike in some ways (not completly but in some ways!)).

The butterfly nebula is quite similar. I would consider that torus to be something like a planetary disk since it seems very dusty and is located probably perpendicular to the rotational axis of the star that I guess is aligned with the glowing structures that are presented as currents. Indeed they appear like a z-pinch and the structure near the star looks like a fault in it. Yes it does. But it doesn’t convince me. Since a current in a z pinch always moves in the same direction (it cannot start from the inside; it is impressed from an external electric field). So if the “currents” in the butterfly nebula are moving in opposite directions it would be a hint that it is not a z-pinch structure. As I said previously planetary nebulae come in quite odd shapes and looks.
I just wanted to admit that I don’t have a reason why this nebula is shaped that way. But I have an idea: You see that torus surrounding the star? Dust is VERY effective in absorbing high energy radiation from the the visible part up to X-rays (look at the torus in infrared light, I promise you, it will disappear!!). Since the torus is actually absorbing light in the plane perpendicular to the rotational axis no ionising light can reach the atoms in that plane. And since the torus is thicker than the star it blocks the light in a very broad angle. Thus atoms in the region inside of this angle will absorb NO ionising light and will give off no radiation, so they are invisible. (And btw: extinction is a very well understood mechanism in space. This is the reason we must take infrared telescopes to look at the galactic center. The dust absorbs all the visible light coming from there!).

The simulation is not convincing in any way. What are the details? AND: If galaxies emerge from two currents, again the question: where are they since they must be pretty strong. And: How strong were those currents in the simulation? What other parameters have been considered? Have been made other simulations with other paramters? Have other galactic shapes emerged from those simulations (since galaxies vary very much in ther appearence (just like planetary nebulae ))?

And the Cat’s eye is just the same as above (just look at Phil’s post he made today, too).

I just read the story that plasma physicists always must reveal that they are NOT dealing with blood – that is the only link I know between plasma physics and biology. But I am not familiar with the history of the word – I just know that it was Langmuir in 1927 who named it plasma.

Hopefully, Phil will allow my longer comment since it “awaits moderation” but we will see.

Btw:

“but I do have advanced training and experience in a field of logic and reason (although not in mathematics)”

Can you please be a bit more specific on the thraining and experience part? I’d like to know where you got that (I am just curious).

The latter one, well, I must say, that is a big problem for you. Mathematics are the most important part in physics next to “physical reasoning”. So how can you say that a geometric interpretation of a force (GR) is not a good thing since you know nothing of that very special field of mathematics – the geometry involved in GR has not much to do with geometry you learn in school! It contains many mathematical tools and theorems about Manyfolds, topology and curvature. They are very complicated and with no (higher) mathematical experience you claim that it is not appropriate? Really?

Sorry, that this is my third post in order, but I have to say something more:

Anaconda, you once stated that heat is the “lowest” form of energy. I think you say this because if something transforms to heat on the planet we cannot use it anymore for “good things”, it is considered lost. I have never used such a term in physics. Never. Because energy always transforms into another form of energy – there is no higher or lower, just a transformation. And if you say, “well, we cannot do anything with heat”, that is just wrong, too. Steam trains work with heat. A more modern aspect are solar power plants – they use the heat (the thermal radiation) of the sun to gain electrical power, so the heat of the sun is all but lost!

This is it for today (hopefully), it’s getting late in Germany. Good night, everyone!

Thanks for answering my question. I would suggest that you think about enrolling in a course or three on advanced mathematics, physics and chemistry, not to mention astronomy. Relying on self-teaching along is rather dodgy, as you may interpret something incorrectly, leading to incorrect assumptions about how things work.

Sure, heat can be concentrated, but by and large, as you stated, heat is “random vibration,” and as you stated, energy can not be destroyed, but it can be diffused into a randomness that has no power to do work, from the mundane level of steam rising from a grate up to heat radiating off into empty space.

Organized energy as opposed to diffuse energy has the most potential to work, or in other words, to act as a force in organizing other larger structures. Electrical energy can readily act as a force that turns into less organized types of energy such as heat.

When electric energy encounters a load in a circuit heat and light are produced. Heat does not have the same capability to transform into electrical energy. Why? Because electrical energy is a more “organized” form of energy. Sure, heat energy can be “pumped” into a system to generate electricity, but left to it’s own device heat doesn’t turn into electricity. But left to its own device electricity will turn into heat.

Actually, DrFlimmer, that is why politics is a never ending debate: It is subjective, while science with observation and measurement can be objective and driven by compulsion, i.e., if A equals X and B equals Y, then C must equal Z.

The problem with today’s theoretical sciences, as opposed to applied material sciences (where “wonders” are truly being achieved) and where experimental testing in a laboratory leaves no room for subjective analysis, is that there are so many assumptions in the theoretical sciences that can’t be tested that it leaves “airplane hangars” of room for subjective analysis. Science then becomes just like politics — count the noses to settle questions because one scientific conclusion can’t be distinguished from another in regards to its objective validity.

And whoever has more political sway decides what is scientific “truth” and what is not. That is the death knell for science. It is to be avoided at all costs because that leaves Science where it can go horribly wrong — crowds aren’t always right, even if they are highly intelligent crowds.

Conventional astrophysics uses mathematics as a cover for the fact that it is highly subjective. Any “science” that relies on so many “theoretical” assumptions (objects, forces, and processes that can’t be observed) is subjective.

Plasma Cosmology relies on the strongest force in the Universe, not the weakest force. And it’s basic premises are based on strict empiricism — observation and measurement gained from laboratory experiment.

I used the term ‘thought experiment’ more as an irony than a serious characterization of my proposed hypothesis.

Here is a piece of physical reasoning: Why would the Universe be organized based on the weakest force (gravity) as opposed to the strongest force (electromagnetism) when both are equally available?

Time after time, science has observed that Nature uses an economy of energy to achieve its outcomes. Using the strongest force allows Nature to achieve it’s outcomes with the most economy of force.

Does Nature ever act with “one hand tied behind its back?”

Stating Nature uses the weakest force as the predominate organizing force is saying that Nature is acting with “one hand tied behind its back.”

I don’t believe that for a second.

At the turn of 20th century, it was reasonable to think of gravity as the strongest force in Nature, therefore, it was reasonable to believe gravity was the predominate organizing force of the Universe.

Man now knows that electromagnetism is the strongest force in nature.

In fact, life itself is organized and functions because of electrical energy, not gravitational energy.

The force that animates life on Earth (think of all the processes in biology that have been discovered that rely on electrical processes and “communications”), also animates the structure of the Universe.

In fact, life would be impossible without electricity.

Life, itself, is the surest “proof” that electrical energy is the “prime” organizing energy in the Universe.

I rest assured that the efficacy of the Plasma Model will only become more evident with time and conventional astronomy will be eventually dragged from its cave of flickering shadows into the bright light of Nature’s true relationships and organizing principles.

To be close-minded to the objective evidence, so as to favor “theories” is the gravest betrayal to the scientific spirit ever perpetrated.

@AnacondaHere is a piece of physical reasoning: Why would the Universe be organized based on the weakest force (gravity) as opposed to the strongest force (electromagnetism) when both are equally available?

That’s not scientific reasoning. It’s meaningless philosophical reasoning. Besides, the universe isn’t organized by a single force. It’s organized by the Strong Nuclear, Electromagnetic, Weak Nuclear and Gravitational forces working in concert. That’s also the order of their strength.

In fact, life would be impossible without electricity.

It would also be impossible without the other forces.

Life, itself, is the surest “proof” that electrical energy is the “prime” organizing energy in the Universe.

I could counter with “The earth itself, is the surest “proof” that gravity is the “prime” organizing force in the Universe.” Or how about “Beer is the surest “proof” that God is the “prime” organizing force in the Universe.”

To be close-minded to the objective evidence, so as to favor “theories” is the gravest betrayal to the scientific spirit ever perpetrated.

Nobody has a problem with you attacking widely accepted scientific theories. The problem is that you’re doing so without first understanding those theories. Regardless of whether of plasma theory is correct or not, you continue to draw conclusions based on some very basic misunderstandings. I’m guessing this is hard for you to accept, but I ask you to trust us on this. We’re not just saying this to be mean or belittle you. If you’re going to attack a theory, you must first understand what you’re attacking. Until then, you’re a crank.

“The problem with today’s theoretical sciences, as opposed to applied material sciences (where “wonders” are truly being achieved) and where experimental testing in a laboratory leaves no room for subjective analysis, is that there are so many assumptions in the theoretical sciences that can’t be tested that it leaves “airplane hangars” of room for subjective analysis.”

I think you have NO idea what theoretical physics are all about! Many “wonders” have been found because of theoretical works. Many “wonders” that are found are later explained by theoretical physics!
To say that the electromagnetic force is the strongest in the world is just wrong, as José already stated. Without the combination of the four fundamental forces the Universe as it looks like (and you, too!) would not exist. The strong force is necessary for elemets to exist at all (even for a proton, since it binds the quarks together). No helium is possible without the strong force because the electromagnetic force would repel them (this is, why fusion is such a hard thing to achieve and why stars are SO hot). The weak force is also necessary… ah, why do I write again, what I already wrote. Just read my last long post again.

Btw: I can think of NO reason why the “island of stability” (indeed, a theoretical assumption, that states that some VERY heavy elemts will be stable again in certain compositions – but we haven’t reached that island yet) accounts for a non-stable pack of neutrons. The electromagnetic force is zero since the neutrons are neutral (although they consists of charged quarks). Probably you don’t know what stabalises a neutron star (the degeneracy of neutrons). This theory doesn’t violate any rule in nuclear physics I know about.

If you don’t trust me about my physical knowledge (that isn’t complete, of course) just ask any professor or PhD – and ask many since everyone has a different field he works on (Phil works/worked on Astronomy, I will go to Astrophysics, others are at plasma physics, nuclear physics and solid-state physics – there is much to learn and much to understand!).

“Conventional astrophysics uses mathematics as a cover for the fact that it is highly subjective. Any “science” that relies on so many “theoretical” assumptions (objects, forces, and processes that can’t be observed) is subjective.”

Every physicist, theoretical or not, relys on mathematics. Physics are based on mathematics. That is no cover. Mathematics are the language physics are written in if you will. And how many “theoretical assumptions” do you count? 2 I guess – dark matter and energy. I count at least 2 for the EU, too – charged stars and those currents (not to mention the denial of known forces…).

Btw: I am waiting for your rejection of my comments about the pictures….

You still need to do more work in understand astronomy, physics and electrical engineering, subjects you talk about. I would recommend reading up on the history of positron and neutrino. These were postulated particles which were later found to exist.

From the onset you have shown deep misunderstand about the people you’ve been talking to and about. Not to mention contempt. You have been very trigger happy with lecturing to everyone about the scientific process. Most of us here as well as the Astronomical community take the spirit of science and the scientific method to heart and fully understand that theories can be turned upside down by evidence. Theorizing and postulating is perfectly acceptable and has a history of actually leading to discoveries.

I also recommend you read up on the experimental evidence that has been gathered *so far* in support of GR. Yes if a theory makes predictions A, B, C and D, and evidence supports A, B and C but with reproducable evidence against prediction D, then that theory needs to be revised. *But*, you still have to take into account the evidence for A, B and C into account. You can’t ignore them. In your previous comments you appeared to be biased against GR based on your impressions of the the wording of the theory. As a result I think you’ve found it hard to digest that a strongly gravitational body can have an affect on light, despite the fact that physicists have accepted this phenomenon as real.

You also forgot to mention that as the experiments are done to a higher and higher level of precision, the theory’s prediction can start to diverge from the evidence. Such was the case with Newton’s law and Mercury. This may yet happen with GR. That was the purpose of the experiement of using Cassini as a known radio source as it swung behind the Sun on it’s way to Saturn.

Last time I checked, electrical engineers used math too (I know what you’re trying to say about theorists using math as apposed to EEs. Just wanted to make some humor).

A sophist is a user of sophisms, i.e., an insincere person trying to confuse or deceive people. A sophist tries to persuade the audience while paying little attention to whether his argument is logical and factual.

A sophism is taken as a specious argument used for deceiving someone. It might be crafted to seem logical while actually being wrong, or it might use difficult words and complicated sentences to intimidate the audience into agreeing, or it might appeal to the audience’s prejudices and emotions rather than logic, i.e., raising doubts towards the one asserting, rather than his assertion. The goal of a sophism is often to make the audience believe the writer or speaker to be smarter than he or she actually is, e.g., accusing another of sophistry for using persuasion techniques. An argument Ad Hominem is an example of Sophistry.

Sophistry means making heavy use of sophisms. The word may be applied to a particular text or speech riddled with sophisms.

N.B. In modern usage, sophist, sophism, and sophistry are derogatory terms, due the influence of many philosophers in the past (sophism and Platonism were enemy schools).

You flatter me by implying that I’m some deceitful sophist, attempting to intimidate others to go along with my view of the world. Hardly. I point out the paradoxes of conventional astronomy and the scientific evidence that supports the Plasma Model. To the extent that you feel uncomfortable is not my doing, it is the scientific evidence that makes you uncomfortable, both against the gravitational model and for Plasma Model.

Without the scientific evidence based on observation and measurement my comments would be nothing but smoke on the wind (which I’m sure you would like to think anyhow, but the undeniable scientifc evidence keeps tugging at your sleeve [Birkeland currents connecting the Sun and the Earth]).

@ José:

Speaking of sophism, the straw man argument is one type of sophism (assigning an argument or position to an opponent [it’s sad you would view me as an opponent or a threat, as opposed to another person acting in good faith to move theory closer to matching reality, but such seems to be the tenor of this last batch of responses, I specifically exclude DrFlimmer, he’s discussing the science in goodfaith, as best I can tell], in which the opponent’s position is subtly changed to make it easier to knockdown and discredit without having to respond to the opponent’s actual argument).

My position is that the electrical force is not the ONLY force, but the predominate force. The Strong Nuclear force obviously has a role, as does the Weak Nuclear force, and Gravity. The nuclear forces act at the sub-atomic level and distances, and Gravity has a role when not eclipsed by Electromagnetic force, but the predominate LONG-RANGE force that transfers and carries energy throughout the Universe is Electromgnetism – this long range force is the predominant force shapping the MACRO structures of the Universe like galaxies.

The argument that the Plasma Model denies gravity has a role in shaping or governing the Universe is a clasic straw man argument gravitation model proponents cast at the Plasma model.

I was pleasantly impressed that sophist, straw man argument hadn’t been used prior in this discussion, but apparently that old shibboleth has raised it’s old and ugly head.

Notice José doesn’t ever respond to the heart of my point: “Why would the Universe be organized based on the weakest force (gravity) as opposed to the strongest force (electromagnetism) when both are equally available?”

Rather his rejoinder misstates my position and attempts to invalidate the question without effectively explaining why the weakest force would be the “architect” of the Universe when Electromagnetism is 10^39 times more powerful than gravity. Here is an analogy: Steel and concrete are both necessary for building materials for constructing modern office highrises, but it is the steel that is the predominate material that allows office towers to be built over a hundred stories tall. Why? because it is the stronger and lighter material over distance (can support more weight).

Again, I ask why the Universe would use the weakest force for the architectual cornerstone of the Universe, as opposed to the strongest force (over distances exceeding the sub-atmomic level)?

@ DrFlimmer, speaking of not responding to arguments: You never did respond to my statements regarding the “big bang” theory which sets aside physical laws, in laymen’s terms is called a “miracle,” and that science doesn’t do miracles, yet that is exactly what “big bang” theory explicitly states is necessary and happened.

(And “big bang” theory” is part and parcel of the gravitation model at this point.)

What about that DrFlimmer?

@ ND: You never did respond to my answer regarding the “neutral” state of plasma (You, too, DrFlimmer). I’ll take it that the silence in response to my argument (especially one DrFlimmer made such a big deal about) is tacit admission of the efficacy of the argument (no effective response could be made).

So, please, I’ll respond (in due course), but the “track record” of gravity model proponents of answering objections and arguments of the Plasma Model position is nothing to write home about (frankly, it’s that inability to answer effectively to the objections and criticisms posed by the Plasma Model that makes gravity model supporters so touchy. (How do you answer when somebody points out the emperor has no clothes on? Answer: You ignore it and hope everybody marches lock-step on by without applying critical thinking.)

José presents my statement: “Life, itself, is the surest “proof” that electrical energy is the “prime” organizing energy in the Universe.”

And then responds by attempting to mock or ridicule the statement (oh, that José with his sophist attempts to discredit my statements and by extension, the Plasma Model).

But I say back to José, look at everything that is energized by electricity: LONG-DISTANCE communication, computers and all they can do, the very power that runs most of mandkind’s inventions and technology, the most ‘organized’ substance on planet Earth, the human brain, which is a mass of electrical impulses, transfers, and signals. Sure, gravity has it’s role and life couldn’t be had without it, but the force that provides and allows for the most complex organization and structure on the surface of the planet is electricity. You could have a planet with elemental substances on it (according to the gravitation model) with gravity only — but for electricity, no higher life can evolve — in fact, the double helix, the basic structure of life’s communication and structure is similar to the toroidal structure that is a natural state of electric current. A mere coincidence — I thin not.

(José, on a side note, as an olive branch, a token of peace — to show a desire to work with in collaboration and cooperation and not in opposition to conventional astronomy, I do hypothesize (I’m not the first to do so by any means) that all the forces you mention are related — different manifestations of some “unknown” unifying principle — gravity has its place, but to inflame the passions once again, for Man to gain an understanding of the Unifying Force, other ideas have to be discarded because they retard Man’s ability to gain further insight. You can guess where that leads to. Oh, the pain that modern astronomy has inflicted on itself by heading up a cul-de-sac and mulishly pretending otherwise by insisting on the infallibility of it’s theories that rest on unseen “forces” and its insisting on “miracles” that require transmuting physical laws.

José states: “Nobody has a problem with you attacking widely accepted scientific theories. The problem is that you’re doing so without first understanding those theories.”

I beg to differ, on the contrary, I understand them too, well, that is why I oppose them. It is those that don’t understand the full implications necessities required by the gravitation model that follow along in the heard of political opinion.

If the Plasma model was taught side-by-side in the leading universities with equally competent instructors, soon, the gravitation model classrooms would be empty — my point, most people have never heard of Plasma Cosmology, many have nagging doubts about various aspects of the theory, but they are told there is no other alternative theory, so they go on following the so-called leading lights, not ever knowing there is, not only a viable alternative, but one that is based on a stronger footing of empirical science resting on observation and measurement by experimental testing in the laboratory.

José leaves on a departing thought and gesture: “you’re a crank.”

Nice one, José, such a show of class and graciousness…

@ DrFlimmer:

It’s not that theoretical sciences haven’t achieved anything, but that they overstate their hypothesis as theory and theory as fact.

“Big bang”? What else do you call that idea other than speculative when it requires setting aside all the known physical laws? I tell you what that is called: Subjective speculation. “Black holes”, never been observed — a required crutch for the gravitational model or it’s falsified.

Face up to the fact, DrFlimmer, that the gravitation model is falsified without the crutches of “black holes”, “dark matter”, “dark energy”, and “strange matter”. A whole menagerie of ghosts and goblins necessary to support the gravitation model. If that isn’t room for subjective analysis, I don’t know what is.

The first step, DrFlimmer, is to be intellectually honest with yourself.

DrFlimmer states: “Without the combination of the four fundamental forces the Universe as it looks like would not exist.”

I agree completely, and as I stated above in this comment, I was pleasantly impressed that you didn’t use that straw man argument before, too bad you decide to parrot it now.

As I said above it is the relative importance of each that matters, and unlike the gravitaional model that continues to deny electric currents exist in space (except in grudging fashion after they have been beat over the head with the evidence), while the Plasma Model acknowledges gravity has a role, just not the role currently assigned to it by conventional astronomers as the architectual cornerstone or structural steel of the Universe — I would call gravity — without being to exact — the concrete to electricity’s structural steel and transport mechanism for the Universe’s energy requirements. You see electricity is the most efficient transporter of energy over distance, not gravity and not nuclear forces, over distances.

This is known to science, yet DrFlimmer, you and the rest of your crew continue to close your eyes to that reality.

DrFlimmer states: “[A]lthough they consists of charged quarks.” Another theoretical particle, see, there are so many assumptions, that you aren’t even consciously aware of all of them.

(And saying, “You wait and see, we’ll find quarks in the super-collider.” Frankly, I hope so, becuase otherwise science is going to have all kinds of egg on its face.)

DrFlimmer presents my comment: “Conventional astrophysics uses mathematics as a cover for the fact that it is highly subjective. Any “science” that relies on so many “theoretical” assumptions (objects, forces, and processes that can’t be observed) is subjective.”

And responds: “Every physicist, theoretical or not, relys on mathematics. Physics are based on mathematics.”

Yes, I agree, mathematics is the language of Nature as Galileo stated some 400 years ago.

But as any valuable tool it can be misused.

Mathematics must always be the servant of observation and measurement, not the master. Mathematics interprets and quantifies the relationsihips observed and measured. Observation and measurement stand on the top rung of science, not mathematical equations extrapolated from all encompassing general theories.

Yet, mathematics is only a tool — it doesn’t abuse anymore than guns killing people — people kill people. The same is true with mathematics, it’s the mathematicians that step over the proper boundaries, not the mathematics, itself.

ND states: “From the onset you have shown deep misunderstand about the people you’ve been talking to and about. Not to mention contempt. You have been very trigger happy with lecturing to everyone about the scientific process.”

Talk about projecting.

ND states: “Most of us here as well as the Astronomical community take the spirit of science and the scientific method to heart and fully understand that theories can be turned upside down by evidence.”

Then prove it. Stop relying on objects, forces, and processes that have nver been observed, yet the “community” has been searching for as long as 70 years (“dark matter”).

That’s called being in denial.

ND states: “…you’ve found it hard to digest that a strongly gravitational body can have an affect on light…”

Actually, if you read my comments closely, you would read that my problem wasn’t so much with the concept of gravity bending light (that may well be entirely possible), but with the concept that gravity distorts time.

Anyway, DrFlimmer, I’ll get back to the discussion of the plama cosmology article and your analysis, interpretation, and criticisms.

… Electromagnetism is 10^39 times more powerful than gravity. Here is an analogy: Steel and concrete are both necessary for building materials for constructing modern office highrises, but it is the steel that is the predominate material that allows office towers to be built over a hundred stories tall. Why? because it is the stronger and lighter material over distance (can support more weight).

So, then, why does an object, such as highrise buildings that you refer to, have weight?

Speaking of sophism, the straw man argument is one type of sophism (assigning an argument or position to an opponent [it’s sad you would view me as an opponent or a threat, as opposed to another person acting in good faith to move theory closer to matching reality, but such seems to be the tenor of this last batch of responses, I specifically exclude DrFlimmer, he’s discussing the science in goodfaith, as best I can tell], in which the opponent’s position is subtly changed to make it easier to knockdown and discredit without having to respond to the opponent’s actual argument).

Hmm… I thought I was arguing in good faith. I don’t view you as a threat or opponent. You’re just someone who attacking something he doesn’t understand. My motivation is to make you realize that.

My position is that the electrical force is not the ONLY force, but the predominate force.

I pointed out that electromagnetism is not the strongest force, as you stated. That’s not a straw man argument.

Notice José doesn’t ever respond to the heart of my point: “Why would the Universe be organized based on the weakest force (gravity) as opposed to the strongest force (electromagnetism) when both are equally available?”

I did respond. My first sentence was “That’s not scientific reasoning. It’s meaningless philosophical reasoning.” That’s all it is. What else is there to say?

José presents my statement: “Life, itself, is the surest “proof” that electrical energy is the “prime” organizing energy in the Universe.” And then responds by attempting to mock or ridicule the statement (oh, that José with his sophist attempts to discredit my statements and by extension, the Plasma Model).

I made statements using the same type of reasoning you used in an attempt to show you the error in your thinking. I thought you might find the last example amusing.

Sure, gravity has it’s role and life couldn’t be had without it, but the force that provides and allows for the most complex organization and structure on the surface of the planet is electricity.

And the force that brings the planet together in the first place is gravity. How can you argue that one force is more important to life than the other?

José leaves on a departing thought and gesture: “you’re a crank.” Nice one, José, such a show of class and graciousness…

This was the full paragraph.

Nobody has a problem with you attacking widely accepted scientific theories. The problem is that you’re doing so without first understanding those theories. Regardless of whether of plasma theory is correct or not, you continue to draw conclusions based on some very basic misunderstandings. I’m guessing this is hard for you to accept, but I ask you to trust us on this. We’re not just saying this to be mean or belittle you. If you’re going to attack a theory, you must first understand what you’re attacking. Until then, you’re a crank.

I thought I was pretty honest and polite. I know you think you understand accepted theories well enough to attack them, but it’s apparent to most people here that you don’t. Until you realize this limitation, it’s pointless to argue with you. Once again, I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just telling you what you need to do if you want to be taken seriously.

That contention has been brought to my attention before, but when I asked for a citation to an authority to back up the claim none was ever provided even after repeated requests (these requests were made to an interlocuter that seemed knowledgable).

@ IVAN3MAN:

Of course weight is caused by gravity, but the point of the analogy was that the most effective force for creating structure in the Universe is electromagnetism because it is the most effective at transporting energy — which is the first building block of creating structure. Mass is the clay, electricity is the molding force.

Second, there are many physicists that see the scientific evidence the same way I do.

Anthony Peratt of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory is published and takes the same position I do. In fact, there are many published scientists that support the Plasma Cosmology theory.

What has been consistent in this discussion is the general refusal to acknowledge even indisputable scientific points if they happen to support Plasma Cosmology theory (or conversely contradict the gravitional [only] model.

That speaks volumes about the open-minded approach of the interlocutors in this discussion.

Defensiveness doesn’t breed confidence that people are interested in exploring the issues objectively, rather it comes off sounding like people more interested in defending their turf.

“Truth for its own sake,” is the highest value in science. Defending “turf” in not.

“DrFlimmer states: “[A]lthough they consists of charged quarks.” Another theoretical particle, see, there are so many assumptions, that you aren’t even consciously aware of all of them.
(And saying, “You wait and see, we’ll find quarks in the super-collider.” Frankly, I hope so, becuase otherwise science is going to have all kinds of egg on its face.)”

I don’t need to say that. Inform yourself. All six postulated quarks have been found!!! The standard model of particle physics is complete. It is not the ultimate answer and LHC will probably show us some “new” physics beyond the standard model. That is another fact that you are NOT informed about. That’s too bad.

“Actually, if you read my comments closely, you would read that my problem wasn’t so much with the concept of gravity bending light (that may well be entirely possible), but with the concept that gravity distorts time.”

It is not “may well entirely possible” – it is a fact! And that gravity distorts time is proven through GPS (because that proves that GR works!). And only because you can’t imagine something it doesn’t mean that it is impossible. Physics on the extream scales are not for human imagination. Noone can imagine Quantum Physics and its consequences. But it is real. Electrons in an atom are no particles, they are more or less a probability to “be somewhere” and even to say “somewhere” is wrong – that is unimaginable but it is real!
Human beings are bound to the earth and evolution has given us the ability to deal with the earth and all the food that lives on it – our brain is not made to imagine the weird things of physics, like quantum physics or time distortion.

“Mathematics must always be the servant of observation and measurement, not the master. Mathematics interprets and quantifies the relationsihips observed and measured. Observation and measurement stand on the top rung of science, not mathematical equations extrapolated from all encompassing general theories.”

Your ignorance about theoretical physics “screams to heaven” (as we say in Germany). Every observation needs its theoretical background and every theory needs its observations. Theoretical and experimental physics are not two different things living side by side. They are connected and bonded. They cannot exist without each other. Once there will be a great discovery in an experiment and the theoretical physicist must explain it (or check if it fits with theories) – and once a theoretical work points to something that is later confirmed by experiments (like neutrinos and positrons, i.e.).
And btw: You should check out the differences between a “scientific theory” and the common word “theory”. There is some difference between both.

““Big bang”? What else do you call that idea other than speculative when it requires setting aside all the known physical laws?”

I didn’t know that BB puts all known physical laws aside. As far as I know it really combines ALL our knowledge! Every force is put in to make it work. Some details are maybe a “mystery” (inflation), but everything in physics has its mysterys. Otherwise physics would be boring and we could close it up (it was suggested to be almost complete about 110 years ago – and then came Planck and Einstein and noone ever since claimed that we know all there is to know). But the BB makes predictions. And one WAS the microwave background (btw: this microwave radiation is the best blackbody radiation ever detected!) – and it was confirmed later. Now we have very precise measurments of it and still the model fits (it even seems to confirm that we need dark energy in our models – everything works out without any physical inconsistencies, aside from DM and DE itself). The new Planck probe that is due to launch this summer will measure the spectrum of the microwave background in even greater detail (with a precision of 10^-6 of a degree (Celsius-scale), I think). That will give us some new insights. How does PC explain the microwave background?

“yet the “community” has been searching for as long as 70 years (”dark matter”)”

Since dark matter is only detectable through its gravitational interaction we cannot detect it otherwise. That is a problem, indeed. But maybe the LHC can give us some insights.

“You see electricity is the most efficient transporter of energy over distance, not gravity and not nuclear forces, over distances.”

But confirm them! I don’t count the ONE current that is only mentioned on a NASA site. Give me a paper that is published in a reliable magazine (like Astrophysical Journal, or Astronomy & Astrophysics).
As long as we don’t confirm those currents in “outer space” (jets do not count, too, since they are very well understood! – and not with “gravity only”) they are as “dark” as dark matter. And as I said, the currents to the sun are more or less rejected since Ulyssis didn’t see them. A big slap in the face of the idea that the sun is powered by external currents, I think.

And btw: Why are so few to none plasma physicists arguing pro PC? Since they should really know what they are doing they are in the best position to attack BB – but usually they don’t. Why?

That is strange. There seems to be one part of my answer that the server doesn’t like. I submit it, but it doesn’t appear. That is why I cut my answer in three parts, but the second part is not allowed by the system (and if I hit the button another time, it says “it was already submitted – please no double posts” (or something like that)). Strange. Probably I used some *bad* words? But I don’t know which one that could be.

Well, the most important part was:

We observe “proto-stars” (they are on their way to be born and are not burning hydrogen in their core yet) in dark molecular clouds. They are dark because they neither emit nor let pass visible light – but infrared light can be detected. And those clouds are not ionised! But stars are born inside of them. That can only happen due to gravity!

“Anyway, DrFlimmer, I’ll get back to the discussion of the plama cosmology article and your analysis, interpretation, and criticisms.”

What has been consistent in this discussion is the general refusal to acknowledge even indisputable scientific points if they happen to support Plasma Cosmology theory (or conversely contradict the gravitional [only] model.

All I ever see are plasma cosmologists making bold proclamations based on half truths and old data. They make wild leaps using faulty logic. When data surfaces that contradicts plasma cosmology, it’s ignored. When they’re criticized, they act indignant.

@ kuhnigget states: “Isn’t that just at the extremely small scale?”
That contention has been brought to my attention before, but when I asked for a citation to an authority to back up the claim none was ever provided even after repeated requests (these requests were made to an interlocuter that seemed knowledgable).

That “contention” has pretty much been the foundation for all experimental particle physics for the last hundred years. You want a citation? Read a physics textbook. Any physics textbook. I’m sure you can find one or two in the library. You might want to bring them to your attention.

I love it the way you guys so cavalierly toss out any fact that doesn’t fit in with your esoteric wisdom. And when I call you a crank, just take comfort in the “fact” that you are indeed one of the chosen ones, persecuted by dem bad ol’ scientists. You’ll be vindicated in the end, of course. They’ll see! Except…you won’t. You know? Honestly, you won’t. You’re just silly, and everyone is being as polite as can be, but…you’re just silly.

Now add me to your list of oppressors that I’m sure you keep in your alchemist’s lab.

I have no oppressors, I do disagree with scientific theories currently held by the majority of astrophysicists.

Although, I point out there is a body of astrophysicists that support the Plasma model.

Pardon me if I don’t accept “textbooks” as authority when I request a citation for a scientific proposition (textbooks are the last place you’re going to find cutting edge science, actually texbooks tend to present the current dogma).

Calling somebody a crank says more about you than it does about them.

Look at you reaction when I politely disagree with you and offer an explanation. (You come late to the discussion, and that’s okay, but you missed out on the scientific evidence reported by NASA supporting the existence of Birkeland (electric) currents between the Sun and the Earth, a distance of 93 million miles.)

Your response is snide and condesending, which is the response of somebody who doesn’t have a substantive rejoinder. Interlocuters who have the authority simply provide it, but those who don’t have authority for their position make comments like yours to distract from the fact that they don’t.

A Birkeland current is a specific magnetic field aligned current in the Earth’s magnetosphere which flows from the magnetotail towards the Earth on the dawn side and in the other direction on the dusk side of the magnetosphere. […] In the Earth’s magnetosphere, these currents are driven by changes in the topology of the magnetotail (e.g., during substorms) and when they reach the upper atmosphere, they create the aurora Borealis and Australis. The currents are closed through the auroral electrojet, which flows perpendicular to the local magnetic field in the ionosphere.

Nowhere does it state that ‘electric currents’ flow between the Sun and the Earth. Any electric current must flow in a closed circuit. The solar wind is a flow of protons and electrons, away from the Sun, in all directions, both at the same speed.

You, Anaconda, are making the mistake of using syllogistic reasoning to support your pet “Plasma Cosmology” hypothesis.

For instance, from the premises some A are B, and some B are C, people tend to come to a definitive conclusion that, therefore, some A are C. However, this does not follow according to the rules of classical logic. For instance, while some cats (A) are black (B), and some black things (B) are televisions (C), it does not follow from the parameters that some cats (A) are bloody televisions (C)!

Ivan… didn’t you get it? A NASA-satallite has detected the current from the sun to the earth. And Anaconda has even given us the link to the NASA-site. And since the sun is positively charged it is on a different potential than the earth – thus a current will occur.

That’s Anaconda’s answer But you are right, Ivan. I was wondering about closed circuits, too.
But Anaconda has to answer some other things to me that I am still waiting for Wait and see

You’re right. “crank” doesn’t really carry enough depth. How about, megalomaniacal, paranoid, sophist, too dumb to pass a real science course so he has to become an apostle of junk crank?

Honestly, you dismiss every particle physics experiment in the past 75 years, you claim every textbook that doesn’t summarize your pet theory is part of the plot to suppress it, you ignore evidence counter to your statements presented by other posters (still haven’t heard any response to the GPS deal…), you make broad generalizations about things you don’t seem to know much about, and you don’t see just a wee bit of trouble with that?

DrFlimmer, it’s Saturday night and maybe I’ve missed something because I’ve had too much Stella Artois, but from what I understand of that NASA article (which I was aware of since I got the NASA e-mail newsletter in December 2007 and March 2008) is that “[the THERMIS] satellites have detected magnetic ‘ropes’ connecting Earth’s upper atmosphere directly to the Sun” and “that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras”, which I interpret to mean that protons and electrons flow in the same direction: away from the Sun and towards the Earth; it does not state that there is a return electrical path to the Sun, just that it drives the “Birkeland currents” around the Earth.

Show a citation to a scientific paper (is that so hard) supporting your position because with your little whiny hissy fit, I’m not inclined to take your word for anything — now go back to kindergarten, wipe your nose, and be a good little boy.

My remarks about textbooks reflect that the NASA reports are from this last year. The NASA reports are the best current science available, not a homogenized textbook published five years ago.

You’ll have to do a lot better than that.

In regards to the GPS: “Hafele [a Special Relativity supporter] admitted that moving clocks do not run slow by the amount proposed by the Lorentz transformation (the gamma factor). Contrary to SR, the slowing of clocks is a function of their velocity relative to the earth’s centre of rotation. This is also demonstrated by the clocks carried on satellites forming part of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Obviously, clock slowing and the fact that the rate of radioactive decay of mesons slows down when they move at high speed do not prove that time itself ‘dilates’ or slows down; it is more logical to suppose that motion affects the internal processes of particles and atoms. All physical devices used for time-keeping are subject to error when accelerated or decelerated, or moved through gravitational fields of different strengths.”

It would be good of you to provide examples instead of making a broad generalization.

@ IVAN3MAN:

If you had actually studied the NASA reports and other relevant scientific papers regarding the scientific observations and measurements you would know that the Birkeland currents between the Sun and the Earth are made up of positive ions and electrons, but that the Earth also gives off electrons and according to the Plasma cosmology is part of a larger circuit. Exactly how that larger circuit is generated is unknown, but if there wasn’t a larger circuit that the Earth was a part of the Earth would soon be neutral in relationship to the Sun and no Birkeland currents would flow from the Sun to the Earth.

But since you seem unaware let me set out the relevant reports from NASA again:

“A ‘magnetic rope’ is a twisted bundle of magnetic fields organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner’s rope. Spacecraft have detected hints of these ropes before, but a single spacecraft is insufficient to map their 3D structure. THEMIS’s five satellites were able to perform the feat.”

Let me just say this description is entirely consistent with the scientifically recognized properties of electrical plasma currents that have been observed and measured in the laboratory.

“(Fig.) 10. Flux Ropes Power the Magnetosphere!: THEMIS discovered a flux rope pumping a 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic.”

“Flux Ropes Power the magnetosphere!”

“30 kilovolt battery in space”

I suggest, IVAN3MAN, you review the links before you make any more rash statements, and DrFlimmer, you should have known better, but instead you leaped on IVAN3MAN’s bandwagon like a thirsty man dying for water.

As I said above, “[I]f there wasn’t a larger circuit that the Earth was a part of the Earth would soon be neutral in relationship to the Sun and no Birkeland currents would flow from the Sun to the Earth.”

But these electric currents do indeed keep flowing from the Sun to the Earth.

“It’s called a flux transfer event or ‘FTE [Birkeland current],'” says space physicist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn’t exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible.”

“We’ve detected a stream of perfectly intact hydrogen atoms shooting out of an X-class solar flare,” says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. “What a surprise! These atoms could be telling us something new about what happens inside flares.”

“These were the “broken atoms” that flares are supposed to produce—protons and heavier ions such as helium, oxygen and iron.”

Again, IVAN3MAN, you need to keep up on the best current available science or you end up looking foolish.

I overlooked your last comment, my mistake and my apology. No, there is no return current to the Sun because that is not the circuit. The circuit is bigger. The circuit as I hypothesized comes into the Sun from the heliopause (I’m aware of DrFlimmer’s objection that no electric current has been detected coming into the Sun over it’s pole) and would be diffused but coming into it’s axis line and as DrFlimmer suggested possibly in dark mode (and, no, it’s not equivalent to “dark matter” because ‘dark mode’ plasma currents have been observed, measured, and studied in the laboratory) then the current flows out on the equitorial plane. Some plasma current originating from the heliopause possibly goes directly to the planets as well.

Let me offer scientfic evidence that electrons do flow out to space from the Earth: “What are we to think about giant lightning bolts to space? Can we think of space as neutral or empty in the face of these spectacular discharges?”

Further:

“Right away they found images on archived satellite pictures, and they recorded hundreds of flashes above distant storms. Giant neon-light-like haloes would appear 85 kilometers above storms. The glows would propagate downward to form red balloons of interlaced filaments. The currents would squeeze into 30-meter-wide channels scattered over areas of a hundred square kilometers and disappear into the clouds. The glows were so diffuse that they seemed hardly a danger to airplanes. The investigators named them “sprites”. The investigators soon discovered another form of lightning above the clouds. “Blue jets” would spout upwards from storms as much as 15 kilometers toward space. Several giant jets shot up to 80 kilometers. The jets were more compact than the sprites.”

…

“And under the clouds the investigators documented extraordinary strikes of “positive” lightning. These bolts were six times as powerful as ordinary “negative” lightning, and they lasted ten times as long.”

…

“Investigators finally were able to correlate their observations. They realized that every time there was a sprite above the clouds there was a bolt of positive lightning below the clouds. The sprite and the positive bolt were parts of a single discharge that stretched from space to the Earth’s surface.”

“Sprites and jets and positive bolts are common. Now that scientists have stopped believing that such phenomena are impossible, they find them in old photographs.”

I apologize for the series of quoted passages, but it seems necessary to insure readers are aware that electrons do, indeed, go into space which would be necessary to continue the circuit. Circuits are necessary for electricity to flow. The link is interesting reading (it’s framed as a hypothesis) about a phenomenon discovered in the last decade or so.

Caption for first picture:
“Electric currents in space. The Double Helix nebula, located near our own galactic center”

DrFlimmer’s response (partial): “The first one is very blurry since the stars are “too” big. Stars are dots in every picture we make, so I conclude the picture is quite enhanced.”

I would use the qualifier, “enlarged”. But the structure in the center of the photograph is clear enough: Filaments intertwined which is consistent with the structure of Birkeland currents. Sorry, but much to your dismay, “neutron” stars have not been proved, they are a hypothesis, not even a theory, and “jets” are indicative of electrical plasma currents. Without the electrical component, neutral gas would disperse and could not hold a focussed beam over many light years of distance.

Next picture caption:
“Sub-millimeter-size tornadoes of current produced by the Plasma Focus, a fusion research device, compared to a Hubble image of the planetary nebula NGC 6751″

DrFlimmer’s response: “But only because it looks like something it doesn’t mean it is the same.”

Agreed, that is true.

DrFlimmer goes on (partial): “It is really possible that a planetary nebula looks exactly that way just by coincidence. And since there is just presented ONE planetary nebula to look like the plasma machine I would consider it to BE coincidence.”

That is a possibility, granted, but this may be “uncommon” because of several considerations: The angle has to be just right to “look down the throat” of a nebula, that would limit the number of nebula that look like this one; also, elctromagnetism is hard to mathematically model (being very dynamic and variable), as I believe you noted earier in the discussion, that suggests that while there are structures that tend to be repeated, the shapes and sizes of electrical phenomenon can vary dramatically because the different interactions that cause charge seperated plasma will result in different shapes and sizes.

One picture is no “proof” I would agree, it’s the cummulative body of evidence.

DrFlimmer states: “Since other planetary nebulae can look very differently from this one this is another statement against the theory of the plasma machine, bacause if currents would be a key component planetary nebulae should look alike in some ways (not completly but in some ways!)).”

As I stated above, there are valid reasons for why not all nebula look alike in the Plasma Cosmology model. But there are similar patterns that are consistent with principles of electromagnetism’s that are repeated in different nebula.

Next picture is the butterfly nebula: This picture shows longitudinal angle as opposed to a “down the throat” angle of a nebula.

DrFlimmer states: ” But it doesn’t convince me. Since a current in a z pinch always moves in the same direction (it cannot start from the inside; it is impressed from an external electric field). So if the “currents” in the butterfly nebula are moving in opposite directions it would be a hint that it is not a z-pinch structure.”

You have no evidence that the currents “are moving in opposite directions.” In fact, Plasma Cosmology doesn’t suggest the currents do move in “opposite directions” and since the gravity model doesn’t admit to electromagnetic currents in deep space at all, my response that is are proposing conjecture that neither the gravity model or Plasma Model supports.

In other words, you objection is simply speculative “mud” thrown up against the wall. The picture is consistent with plasma dynamics ( I appreciate your comments to that end), and I respectfully submit you objection is conjecture that has no reasonable basis. It as if you admit to electrical currents in space, but then say since the electrical currents don’t work the way they are supposed to, then there are no electrical plasma currents in space.

I find your explanation unconvincing.

DrFlimmer states: “The simulation is not convincing in any way. What are the details?

Dr. Anthony Peratt at the Los Alamos National Laboratories (U.S.A.) did the work on this supercomputer simulation based in known laboratory properties of plasma. Below is a link that provides more details.

DrFlimmer states: “[W]here are they [electric currents] since they must be pretty strong?”

This is a question you have repeated several times. And as I answered it before, I will again: The electrons in an electrical current can’t be seen directly, but they can be detected by the electromagnetic energy they emit like synchrotron radiation, radio waves, and x-rays.

This has all been proven in the laboratory by experimental testing.

Considering your slavish devotion to the “big bang” and all the problems with that concept, I’m surprised that you have problems with computer simulations based on known properies and characteristis of plasma demonstrated in the laboratory. But, again, the link above will allow you to review the perameters of the simulation.

Next picture caption:
“Radio Galaxy 1313-192. Jets emitted by the visible galaxy power the x-ray emitting lobes. Such lobes were predicted by Hannes Alfvén long before radio sources were discovered.”

DrFlimmer, you failed to address the above picture.

The article states: “The term “plasma” was co-opted from biology in recognition of the eerily lifelike forms and changes observed in electrical discharge experiments with ionized gases. Besides forming filaments, braids, sheets, and isolating layers, plasmas will organize into cellular structures bounding regions possessing different properties such as temperature, density, and chemistry. The Cat’s Eye nebula shows the kind of complexity that can result.”

“In regards to the GPS: “Hafele [a Special Relativity supporter] admitted that moving clocks do not run slow by the amount proposed by the Lorentz transformation (the gamma factor). […] All physical devices used for time-keeping are subject to error when accelerated or decelerated, or moved through gravitational fields of different strengths.””

The earth’s center of rotation? Well, that tells us all we need. SR only works in initial frames – and the earth is none! And I didn’t know that the earth’s center of rotation is something different than the earth’s center at all….
And GPS is running too fast and not too slow. This is the GR effect. And why does it match the theory so precisly? If the theory is wrong than GPS would do anything but work. And everyday life shows that it works. Or did your GPS ever told you to stand in the seas while you are on a mountain?

Since you did not include a reference as to where you got the Hafele/SR passage, I did a google search. I found a single page and the author of that article from which you quote also has many other articles. One being that HIV does *not* cause AIDS. I think you might want to try and find another reference regarding time dilation.

Quoted, I couldn’t help but notice, from a website that listed no citations backing up its claims. The names of the “investigators” are not listed, nor are the specific sources of the data and photographs supposedly examined. I guess they were afraid their studies might end up in a textbook.

I also love this quote from the same website: “Without a theory with which to understand an observation, we tend not even to perceive it.”

Major huhhhhhh? See, that in a nutshell is what is wrong with “plasma cosmology” and other crank theories. Rather than find observable phenomena, study them, come up with a theory that might explain them, test that theory, modify it, retest it, etc., they come up with their theory first then “perceive” the phenomena that supports it, mining mountains of data for the occasional nugget they can say proves them right, while ignoring all the rest of the slag pile gathered around them.

Sorry, that’s bad science.

Dr. Anthony Peratt at the Los Alamos National Laboratories (U.S.A.) did the work on this supercomputer simulation based in known laboratory properties of plasma

Looking outside the field for a moment, I couldn’t help but find this reference to Peratt’s simulation:

The numerical simulation was compared in a basic eye-test comparison: there has been no attempt to do any quantitative analysis comparing Perrat’s simulation with actual galaxies. This may be in part due to the fact that no simulation has been done that uses gravity.

Rather interesting, is it not, that the “simulation” left out the one force that figures so prominently in the model of the universe generally accepted by the vast amount of real cosmologists and astrophysicists? I can do similar “simulations” in my teacup when I pour the cream in. Ooooo! There’s a spiral! Hey! There’s an irregular dwarf! Oh! Look at that barred galaxy!

This is typical of pseudoscience, even when presented by people you’d expect to know better (whose credentials usually lie in fields other than the one they are challenging). Mine the data to find chance similarities (like your nebula photos) and ignore the rest.

This is junk, Anaconda. There is a reason why the vast majority of astronomers and physicists do no accept it, and it has nothing to do with bad textbook publishers, entrenched dogmatists, or crusty ol’ scientists who refuse to change their mind. It’s just junk science.

You seem like an otherwise intelligent person. If you would spend even a remotely comparable amount of your time “researching” something other than the information regurgitated at the crackpot plasma websites, and actually understanding it, you might even come to that conclusion yourself.

If so, you are sadly mistaken, which given the tenor of your comments is not surprising at all.

Dr. Anthony Peratt is a recognized expert in plasma physics with many published scientfic papers in peer reviewed publications.

Your effort to attack his work and by extention all plasma physicists’ work that extends this field into observation and measurement of space phenomenon is misguided and makes you come off as less than knowledgable.

The NASA reports I linked to support Plasma Cosmology theory.

Are they a bunch of crackpots?

According to your reasoning they are (anybody who supports the concept of Plasma Cosmology, electric currents in space).

Your broad brush strokes of indignation and dismissal are designed to tar a whole field of science, but all your brush strokes are doing is painting a picture of yourself as an uninformed individual given to calling names when you are disagreed with as a substitute for reasoned argument.

My time is still limited, because I am actually learning for an oral exam about GR in the next few weeks. And some other exams are waiting, too. That is the disadvantage of actually studying phyics. But it doesn’t counterbalance the advantage: To understand what’s going on!
But, as I said, my time is limited. So I am not able to search the whole web for sources. If you want some papers, I give you two links where can search all scientific papers that have ever been published (at least about astrophysics!) – some are not available, because you must pay for them, but their abstracts are – and they are quite informative, too.

“Next picture caption:
“Radio Galaxy 1313-192. Jets emitted by the visible galaxy power the x-ray emitting lobes. Such lobes were predicted by Hannes Alfvén long before radio sources were discovered.”
DrFlimmer, you failed to address the above picture.”

Yes I skiped it, because I thought we went over jets in previous posts. But you want it: You get it!
First of all the caption bothers me: What are we seeing? X-rays or radio waves? I guess it is radio waves and say that the author just made a typing error – and he meant radio waves when he wrote X-rays.
But he could have choosen a much better picture than that one. Centaurus A is much nicer!
Now the picture – and I have to say it again: Jets (and lobes) are very well understood! A jet contains a plasma with equal amounts of positive and negative charges. It is possible that there are electrons and positrons in a jet. We cannot distinguish them since their only difference is the direction of the gyro-motion around the magnetic field lines. The light they emit is the same. They are not rushing in opposite directions because we can tell that from Doppler shifts (that has nothing to do with cosmological red-shift!). It can also contain protons, of course, but they are behaving differently to electrons due to their mass. It is still a debate to which part of the spectrum of a jet each particle is contributing. The consensus abut the low-energy part (meaning “soft” gamma-rays and X-rays) is that it is made by electrons/positrons and the high-energy part is probably due to proton involvements (Pion-decay, etc).
The lobes are part of the standard model I am talking about. They are created by the very fast jet particeles crashing into the diffuse intergalactic matter. The interactions between both will lead to a strong emission of radio waves (and probably other photons up to X-rays).
This is very well understood, as I said. The existence of jets and radio lobes do not need “EU/PC”. For a electric current that is NOT closed (do you see any connections from the lobe to somewhere else?) you need at least a potential difference. But the lobes are on no electric potential because otherwise they would take enaugh electrons or protons (depending on the potential) to equal out again – and they would get those particles from everywhere they could; not through a narrow beam.

About the butterfly nebula. You failed to comment on my suggestion about the structure, that the dusty ring has made it! Btw:
“You have no evidence that the currents “are moving in opposite directions.””
You have no evidence that they are moving in one direction . But I can tell you what will tell us: A measurment of Doppler-shifts! If they are both red- or blus-shifted it would be a point for you. Otherwise I score!

“DrFlimmer states: “[W]here are they [electric currents] since they must be pretty strong?”
This is a question you have repeated several times. And as I answered it before, I will again: The electrons in an electrical current can’t be seen directly, but they can be detected by the electromagnetic energy they emit like synchrotron radiation, radio waves, and x-rays.”

And I will ask this question ever and ever again! Of course we cannot detect an electron by seeing it! Don’t be pedantic! Of course it is only detectable by the radiation you mentioned. But we only see jets and nothing else. That is everything we detect of such “currents” – and jets are no current since they do not equal out a potential nor are they closed. Not to mention charges: Jets are a current of BOTH positive and negative charges – that is NO current in the normal meaning.

Btw: It is interesting that you reject Wikipedia as a scource and you guid me to a wikipedia-like page. And it is interesting that there are no newer reference than 1995 and most are even before 1990. Most interesting is that this “very precise” simulation is from the early 1980’s! Why is there no new one?
Very critical discoverys have been made later than that! Especially the HST has given us many insights. And it is active since 1991 or 1992. Why is nobody working on it any more? Why are there no new simulations? I guess every laptop is equally good than a Super-Computer from the early 1980’s.
Oh. And 10^18 amperes. GEEE. That is much! Here is the chicken and egg problem again: Those galaxies are supposed to emerge from 2 plasma bulbs trapped by these (fantastically) strong currents and their magnetic fields. Where do the currents and their magnetic field come from in the first place?
The Microwave Background (you didn’t comment on that – as you didn’t on quarks, either!) tells us that the universe was a VERY homogenous place! Where do such currents come from?
And a simulation is a great tool, indeed – but it doesn’t necessarily have to represent the reality. We can do the same with “gravity (not only)” and find the same – but you will doubt that, won’t you?

“Your broad brush strokes of indignation and dismissal are designed to tar a whole field of science, but all your brush strokes are doing is painting a picture of yourself as an uninformed individual given to calling names when you are disagreed with as a substitute for reasoned argument.”

I considered that could be turned around and directed at myself. And after considering that possibility, I went ahead and wrote the passage you quoted because kuhnigget statement was exactly as quoted.

In terms, of turning that around at myself.

Consider this: Most of this discussion except where the evidence was so overwhelming that to deny it looked stupid, the track has been to deny electrical plasma currents have any role in space.

I on the other hand have explicitly stated that gravity does have a role, but not the predominate role assigned to it that the gravity model does.

What would be fruitful scientific inquiriy is to determine the relative relationships between the two forces in space, instead of being in denial about electromagnetisms having a role at all.

The scientific evidence and common sense, reasoning and logic all suggest electromagnetism and gravity have a role in the architecture of the Universe.

I am asserting the pages you linked to do not list WHO the investigators are, nor any other citation. Not a very “scientific” way of doing business, is it? And not the best way to win converts when you use the pages in question as “evidence.”

Nice dodge, though. Continue to ignore it, why don’t you.

Dr. Anthony Peratt is a recognized expert in plasma physics with many published scientfic papers in peer reviewed publications.

Again, nice dodge, snakeman. I made no comment on Peratt personally, I just pointed out that the simulation YOU brought up did not take into account gravity, a rather big oversight, wouldn’t you say? Furthermore, others noted that it was strictly a visual comparison between his plasma whirligigs and spiral galaxies. I also pointed out that such visual comparisons, while interesting, prove nothing. You can find similar patterns in whirlpools, cloud vortexes, and…cups of coffee.

The NASA reports I linked to support Plasma Cosmology theory. Are they a bunch of crackpots?

They do no such thing. They identify a very specific phenomenon occurring in a very specific place, the interaction of the solar and terrestrial magnetic fields. From there it is a huge, unwarranted leap to say that plasma physics rules the universe. Sorry, but you are being the crackpot, yet again.

The scientific evidence and common sense, reasoning and logic all suggest electromagnetism and gravity have a role in the architecture of the Universe.

They do. Electromagnetism rules the subatomic universe, until you get into the realm of the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity rules the macroscopic universe. Hundreds of years of study and thousands upon thousands of verifiable experiments confirm this, and no amount of quackery is going to seriously change it. Will the theories continue to evolve? Of course. Will the entire field of physics go out the window? No, it won’t, no matter how many martyrs to the cause clog up the intertoob with their silliness.

It’s kind of like banging your head against a wall, José, only it never ends so there’s no relief once it stops.

Eventually, the snake will tire of his Truths™ not being accepted and he’ll go somewhere else where his wisdom is better appreciated. I’d introduce him to MUFON, but I think that would be cruel.

What would really be nice would be if he took a trip to the nearest library and “studied” something other than the sacred texts of plasma physics. That would be heresy, of course, so I wouldn’t place any bets on it.

Here is my response on the first link I posted in this discussion regarding the computer sims of the first stars involving dark matter. Rather late but here it is.

1) The phenomenon dubbed as “dark matter” was indeed discovered 70 years ago. It’s very nature is still mostly unknown but there is overwhelming evidence that the phenomenon exists. The following sentence from the article makes a distinction on this:

“Even though little is known about their nature, evidence for the presence of dark matter is overwhelming, from observations of galaxies, to clusters of galaxies, to the Universe as a whole.”

You contested that dark matter was not discovered but theorized 70 years ago and that there was not overwhelming evidence for the phenomenon.

“The first to provide evidence and infer the existence of a phenomenon that has come to be called “dark matter” was Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, of the California Institute of Technology in 1933.[5] He applied the virial theorem to the Coma cluster of galaxies and obtained evidence of unseen mass. Zwicky estimated the cluster’s total mass based on the motions of galaxies near its edge.”

This matter was taken up again about 40 years later by the work of Vera Rubin in the late 1960s and early 1970. By this time it was possible to accurately determine the rotational speeds in galaxies. According to her work there was indeed the gravitational influence of some unseen matter in addition to the expected gravitational influence of visible matter in galaxies. She announced this in 1975 and was met with skepticism. However evidence soon piled up that this phenomenon was indeed real. It’s very nature is still a mystery but the phenomenon is real.

Given this history it appears that a concerted effort in investigating dark matter started in the 70s and not 7 years ago. But even then, making statements that astronomers have been looking for dark matter for years and not finding it is a very subjective argument against dark matter. It completely ignores the technical realities and difficulties of the search for dark matter.

2) You belittled and dismissed the computer simulation. Computer simulations are very valuable tools but they are not the final step. Actual observations still need to be made in order verify any hypothesis from the sims. The article makes it clear that observational research will need to be done. You point to Dr. Peratt’s simulation but as kuhnigget pointed out, there is a very large caveat regarding the application of the simulation results to actual galaxies. It would be interesting how they, compare. It would be interesting to use some of the most powerful supercomputers to simulate a galaxy formation given all we know so far of the composition and the forces acting in a galaxy. A simulation more comprehensive than what’s come before. And yes, a simulation is only good as the data that goes into it and the completeness of the model used in the simulation. That said, simulations are amazingly successful and essential tools. Dr. Peratt thought so apparently.

3) You pointed to the image in the article of the simulation and said that it was a Birkeland current. This is not mentioned in the article at all. The article talks about gravitational influence and we have no idea what sort of calculations they did in the simulation. We don’t know if they used plasma physics in the sims. So your declaration that this is a Birkeland current or z-pinch is premature.

It’s also worth noting whatever article gets thrown about in this discussion cannot be fully trusted as the complete picture of the topic it’s covering. The articles are written by a third party trying to present the news in sensible but abridged manner.

(I note parenthetically that in the comments since I left-off none of my fellow commenters has addressed the issue I brought up that both electromagnetism and gravity play a role in the architecture of the Universe [other than kuhnigget’s head in the sand response that ignores the evidence of electrical currents between the Sun and the Earth] and the proper role of science is to determine and quantify what electromagnetism and gravity’s repective roles are — this speaks volumes about these commenters’ commitment is to advancing scientfic understanding.)

Take a deep breath and realize what a bunch of bullies you look like. Is this how conventional astronomy really works?

Is this how you discuss issues with people you disagree with?

[K]uhnigget picks up right where he left-off ignoring scientfic evdience. Why am I not surprised.

I didn’t use a broad brush stroke — I dealt with each theory in turn. With “black holes”, I pointed out that the theory presented in the post contradicted the orginal “black hole” theory that “black holes” formed from the gravitational collapse of super-massive stars which arise from galaxy formation. “Dark matter” which has never been detected, but which was theorized 70 years ago, sorry ND, if “dark matter” was discovered 70 years ago, why are they still looking for it.

ND states: “He applied the virial theorem to the Coma cluster of galaxies and obtained evidence of unseen mass. Zwicky estimated the cluster’s total mass based on the motions of galaxies near its edge.”

In other words, Zwicky applied one hypothesis to suggest another hypothesis to keep from falsifying another theory (the gravitational model).

No, Zwicky concluded that “dark matter” existed because unless there was “dark matter” the gravitational model was falsified.

This kind of conclusion is tenuous at best.

Then I raised the hypothesis of the “big bang” which explicitly sets aside all the physical laws known to Man. Something from nothing is not physical science, but rank speculation. As early as Edwin Powell Hubble scientists were disputing the “big bang” theory, that’s inconvenient as heck, but it’s the truth. But there is more. The miraculous creation story of the Big Bang originated from the Belgian Roman Catholic priest and scientist Monsignor Georges LeMaître and was quickly taken up by the Pope. The Pope could work with a theory that required a miracle…”In the beginning…”

Then I pointed out that “dark energy” was required to shore up “black holes” and “strange matter” was required to shore up the “neutron” star hypothesis.

And “quarks” which haven’t been observed, rather are hypothesized by quantum mechanics, that was one stated reason to built the super-collider, to verify whether “quarks” actually exist — it find to hypothsize a particlular process, force, or phenomenon, it is entirely another thing to then overstate the hypothesis into a theory and worse to overstate a theory into a fact.

I’ll acknowledge this much: when you get done going down the list of all the unseen and never detected enities that the gravitational model requires to sustain itself, it doesn’t leave much left. But that’s not the result of broad brush stokes on my part, that’s the result of astonomy relying on all these hypothesized enities to sustain the gravitational model.

Conventional astronomy has brought this predicament on itself by overstating hypothesis into fact, instead of questioning the underlying general theory.

ND states: “By this time it was possible to accurately determine the rotational speeds in galaxies. According to her work there was indeed the gravitational influence of some unseen matter in addition to the expected gravitational influence of visible matter in galaxies.”

Or it could be that it’s electromagnetism that explains the rotational speed of the galaxies, and interestingly enough, when one uses the known force of electromagnetism you don’t need to invent “dark matter”.

ND states: “However evidence soon piled up that this phenomenon was indeed real. It’s very nature is still a mystery but the phenomenon is real.”

Sorry, again, ND, your deluding yourself, the truth of the matter is that the evidence piled up that without “dark matter” the gravitational model was falsified. The choice was simple: Either “dark matter” existed or the gravitational model was falsified.

And the establishment wasn’t about to admit the falsification of the core principle in astronomy the last 70 years: “Dark matter” was decreed to exist.

ND states: “But even then, making statements that astronomers have been looking for dark matter for years and not finding it is a very subjective argument against dark matter.”

No, that’s a basic tenent of science — something is a hypothesis until solid scientific evidence exists to confirm the hypothesis. That hasn’t happened for “dark matter”.

ND states: ” It completely ignores the technical realities and difficulties of the search for dark matter.”

Please, the easy answer and required answer if you follow the scientific method is that it doesn’t exist. Conventional astronomy doesn’t even know what it’s looking for that’s how big the problem is with “dark matter”.

If the properties of “dark matter” where understood, then you would know what to look for and where. But you don’t, you’re literally “groping” in the dark.

That’s why this kind of discussion is so uncomfortable for astronomers: Even causual observers understand just how “out of control” conventional astronomy is when it’s explained in laymen’s terms.

ND states: “You belittled and dismissed the computer simulation (that used hypothesized values for “dark matter”. The difference between the two simulations is that Dr. Peratt used KNOWN values of plasma and electromagnetism recognized by plasma physicists, not hypothsized values of undetected varients of “dark matter”. The fact that you are still trying to justify the article you linked to shows how “out of control” atronomy is. You don’t understand or appreciate the difference between computer simulations with known values and “guessed at” values — it’s the difference between night and day.

[K]uhnigget, again, fails to understand the significance of the Dr. Peratt’s simulation: It didn’t use gravity, that’s the point! Using known principles of electromagnetism alone generated galaxy like formation.

This is because in the presence of the force of electromagnetism, the force of gravity is eclipsed.

Please, you guys are an embarrassment to yourselves.

Although I’ll acknowldege ND’s final point.

ND states: “It’s also worth noting whatever article gets thrown about in this discussion cannot be fully trusted as the complete picture of the topic it’s covering. The articles are written by a third party trying to present the news in sensible but abridged manner.”

Agreed, the article is meant to introduce average folks to the POSSIBILITY of electrical plasma currents in space, it’s not designed to be definitive.
The article is also designed to encourage further investigation by the readers that are intriqued by the limited amount of information provided.

Which was my intent as well.

@ kuhnigget:

Sorry, the desired implication of your comment was clear, “I don’t want other readers to believe it.” But since you spend so much time dismissing it without disputing the essential elements of the story — your bottom line is obvious — “I don’t dispute it, but I’ll trash it because I don’t like what it is saying.”

[K]uhnigget states: “I am asserting the pages you linked to do not list WHO the investigators are, nor any other citation. Not a very “scientific” way of doing business, is it? And not the best way to win converts when you use the pages in question as “evidence.”

For a guy who won’t point to a single specific source for his contention that electromgnetism’s strength is limited to the atomic level, but just whines, “textbooks say” you have no room to talk. Of all my fellow commenters, here, in this discussion, you’re the one who comes across most oblivious of how hypocritical you sound.

I offered the article because it lays out evidence consistent with Earth being part of a larger electrical circuit, perhaps, that is why you’re trying so hard to discredit the article.

You don’t help your cause — your comments make you come across like some conventional astronomy “goon” with about as much smarts, too.

As example, kuhnigget states: “This is typical of pseudoscience, even when presented by people you’d expect to know better (whose credentials usually lie in fields other than the one they are challenging). Mine the data to find chance similarities (like your nebula photos) and ignore the rest.”

You call the work of Dr. Peratt, “pseudoscience” and implicitly challenge his credentials, “whose credentials usually lie in fields other than the one they are challenging…” (Which Dr.Peratt’s credentials are in the area of astrophysics and plasma physics.)

Then kuhigget states: “I made no comment on Peratt personally…”

Please, do you think all the readers of this discussion are that stupid that you can pass off your last statement. No, it clear you’re an ignorant “goon” that doesn’t appreciate that other people can read.

I may disagree with my other fellow commenters, here, in this discussion, but you’re the only one that comes off as a complete “goon”.

[K]uhigget states: “It’s just junk science.”

Welcome to the conversation, kuhigget, remind me to bring my rubber hose next time, would ya.

I’ll lay off at this point and try and recover my good graces and deal with the other comments at a higher level than, “my mother says to stay away from boys like you because your daddy sells ‘junk science’.

Anaconda.
one of your basic statements was something like: “A plasma organises itself into some structures.”
That means: If you have a plasma “somewhere” and you don’t do anything, it can behave at its will, than it will organise itself into shapes and sheaths and layers and so on.
That is your statement, more or less. Is that correct?
What I ask myself is: Why should it do that? Why should a plasma behave like this?
All we know is that everything tries to be in the lowest possible state. And electric and magnetic fields are nothing like that. If there is an interior electric field the plasma will always try to cancel it out! And the particles are able to move, they are not bound to something like in a solid. So they will move and they will cancel the electrostatic field out.
Where can we have such a clump of plasma that can behave on its own?
It must be a big clump, indeed. Probably with a mass about 10^30kg and more. Of course, I mean the sun. This is a big ball of plasma and is probably able to behave as it wants to.
If it does there is no reason that there is an electric field that extends the suns surface (and we haven’t measured one). Since there is none, the sun is neither charged nor is it on any potential. That means that it is not bound to any interstellar current and moves through the galaxy on its own. But if that is true for the sun it is true for every star. So the stars are not bound to the galaxy by electrostic/electromagnetic forces/currents. Thus there is no need for those currents at all.
Why can I proudly say there is no current from or to the sun? A current is a displacement of differently charges particles with respect to each other. I mean: You get a current if you can devide electrons and protons. But the solar wind contains equal amounts of electrons and protons and they are moving with the same velocity! That is no electric current! It cannot even make a magnetic field on its own (as a “normal” current does) since the magnetic field of an electron and a proton will cancel out.
And there is none to the sun, either. When I told you that we haven’t measured an incoming flux of particles you claimed that this current is in “dark mode”. But a current is always the flux of particles, dark or not. And there was no flux into the sun (cosmic rays come in in so little numbers and from random spots that this cannot be called a considerable flux at all – especially not if it is blamed to account for the sun’s motion around the galactic center). So your current does not exist.
But why are we observing plasma filaments on earth, “self-organising”? We have not the ability of the sun to hold our plasmas together due to gravity. We need to hold them together or they will disperse rapidly. Our only chance is an electromagnetic field – an external one. That’s it.

(Oh, and where is the current that is leaving the earth? If their is, indeed, a CURRENT flowing between the sun und the earth it needs to be closed somewhere)

2 short comments:
Have you ever heard of the LEP-Collider that used to be at CERN? It has shown for several years with extraordinarily good data that the standard model of particle physics is correct! Quarks exist! There is nothing more to say!

You cannot imagine a day that had no yesterday? But can you imgine a universe that comes from “minus infinity”?
Btw: Have you heard about Olber’s paradoxon? It can only be solved if the universe has a “finite” past!

But now, I will wait for your “higher level” comment that hopefully includes responses to my last post (there are quite a few things you can deal with!).

Please, do you think all the readers of this discussion are that stupid that you can pass off your last statement. No, it clear you’re an ignorant “goon” that doesn’t appreciate that other people can read.

Why? because I challenge the conclusion of one of your gods? I guess plasma physicists are above reproach, eh? It’s not allowed to challenge their conclusions? Do you get crank demerit points if you do?

I love the way you dote on Peratt’s data yet you continue to conveniently ignore the fact that thousands of experimental physicists have done thousands of experiments that point rather conclusively to the fact that electromagnetic forces only rule the microscopic world, while thousands of astronomical observations show that gravity rules the macro universe. Oh, but of course, those findings can be read about in textbooks, and all textbooks are wrong, because they are organs of the gravity mafia.

I also love the way you continue to overlook the fact that Peratt’s simulation did not include gravity. Sounds to me like he already had a conclusion and was manufacturing some data to back it up..

[K]uhnigget, again, fails to understand the significance of the Dr. Peratt’s simulation: It didn’t use gravity, that’s the point! Using known principles of electromagnetism alone generated galaxy like formation.
This is because in the presence of the force of electromagnetism, the force of gravity is eclipsed.

“Eclipsing” gravity? Good grief.

I guess that’s why NASA builds woo woo plasma collectors on all its spacecraft. God knows, gravity wouldn’t have anything to do with being able to land a spacecraft on Mars.

With “black holes”, I pointed out that the theory presented in the post contradicted the orginal “black hole” theory that “black holes” formed from the gravitational collapse of super-massive stars which arise from galaxy formation.

You are aware, are you not, that scientific theories continue to evolve and grow as more and more data emerge and more scientists study both the data and the theoretical consequences of it?

You ask: “One of your basic statements was something like: “A plasma organises itself into some structures.”
That means: If you have a plasma “somewhere” and you don’t do anything, it can behave at its will, than it will organise itself into shapes and sheaths and layers and so on.”

As I stated before at my January 15th, 2009 at 1:55 pm comment: “Plasma is subject to many different forces and circumstances that set up (See original comment links) charge seperation which is necessary to generate electric currents. Please refer to this additional Wikipedia entry for “double layers (plasma)”.

You’ll note upon reading the first link the words ‘charge seperation’, it is a basic definition, but it makes these statements:

“Double layers may be found anywhere that plasmas are found…”

“[Double layers can have] Large potential drops and layer separation may accelerate electrons to relativistic velocities (ie close to the speed of light), and produce synchrotron radiation.”

“And although plasmas are highly electrically conductive, a property that tends to neutralised charges, double layers may self-generate, or form when two plasma regions with different properties come into contact.”

It is the latter phrase that is important for this discussion: “double layers may self-generate, or form when two plasma regions with different properties come into contact.”

This concept that when two plasma regions with different properties come into contact cause a self-generation of double layers, therefore, electric currents are formed, is the point I was raising in the discussion.

As the Wikipedia entry on double layers (plasma) points out, there are numerous ways for plasma to form double layers with electric charge potential (I count over ten different ways for plasma to form double layers).

So, the second citation, ND, you provide on plasma simply doesn’t fully delineate all the ways plasma can form double layers, i.e., electric current.

But, I will acknowledge that at “some” level plasma is neutral, however, to generally characterize plasma as neutral is misleading in any discussion about dynamic environments on Earth and in space.

Let’s put it this way: Theoretically plasma can be an “isolated body” and be neutral. But practically speaking that is rarely the case, so, in practicable terms, I would submit it’s fair to say plasma is inherently a body of matter that is electrically charged and is capable of producing electric currents.

ND, do you see the subtle distinction I am trying to make? (actually, it’s not subtle at all.)”

DrFlimmer asks himself: “What I ask myself is: Why should it do that? Why should a plasma behave like this?

DrFlimmer it is a scientific fact that it does: All the behaviors listed in my above comment have been observed, measured, and recorded in plasma physics laboratories. Proved as much as ANY theory can be.

So you may have a problem with understanding the concept, but this is how plasma behaves.

It’s at the same level of certainty, as theories go, as the fact that there are electrons.

I can’t help you if you’d rather disbelieve proven scientific principles.

DrFlimmer states: “If there is an interior electric field the plasma will always try to cancel it out!” No, not always.

You approach suggests you don’t believe in electric currents in nature. As if only Man can create electric currents — that is mistaken.

DrFlimmer, I appreciate your discussion, you have kept rancor out of you comments, which is a big plus in your favor.

But it seems appropriate that if you are interested in plasma behavior you give it study on your own.

You seem determined to disagree with anything that might challenge the gravitational model. I will not change you mind — only you can do that.

But that is not a scientific approach, but rather an approach of one who has “faith” in something, and if anything challenges that “faith” it is to be struck down. “Faith” must be perserved at all costs.

DrFlimmer states: “If it does there is no reason that there is an electric field that extends the suns surface (and we haven’t measured one). Since there is none, the sun is neither charged nor is it on any potential.”

False, as I already stated in my January 17th, 2009 at 7:35 pm comment: “If you had actually studied the NASA reports and other relevant scientific papers regarding the scientific observations and measurements you would know that the Birkeland currents between the Sun and the Earth are made up of positive ions and electrons, but that the Earth also gives off electrons and according to the Plasma cosmology is part of a larger circuit. Exactly how that larger circuit is generated is unknown, but if there wasn’t a larger circuit that the Earth was a part of the Earth would soon be neutral in relationship to the Sun and no Birkeland currents would flow from the Sun to the Earth.

But since you seem unaware let me set out the relevant reports from NASA again:

“A ‘magnetic rope’ is a twisted bundle of magnetic fields organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner’s rope. Spacecraft have detected hints of these ropes before, but a single spacecraft is insufficient to map their 3D structure. THEMIS’s five satellites were able to perform the feat.”

Let me just say this description is entirely consistent with the scientifically recognized properties of electrical plasma currents that have been observed and measured in the laboratory.

“(Fig.) 10. Flux Ropes Power the Magnetosphere!: THEMIS discovered a flux rope pumping a 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic.”

“Flux Ropes Power the magnetosphere!”

“30 kilovolt battery in space”

I suggest, IVAN3MAN, you review the links before you make any more rash statements, and DrFlimmer, you should have known better, but instead you leaped on IVAN3MAN’s bandwagon like a thirsty man dying for water.

As I said above, “[I]f there wasn’t a larger circuit that the Earth was a part of the Earth would soon be neutral in relationship to the Sun and no Birkeland currents would flow from the Sun to the Earth.”

But these electric currents do indeed keep flowing from the Sun to the Earth.

“It’s called a flux transfer event or ‘FTE [Birkeland current],’” says space physicist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn’t exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible.”

“We’ve detected a stream of perfectly intact hydrogen atoms shooting out of an X-class solar flare,” says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. “What a surprise! These atoms could be telling us something new about what happens inside flares.”

“These were the “broken atoms” that flares are supposed to produce—protons and heavier ions such as helium, oxygen and iron.”

DrFlimmer, please review the NASA documents they are quite explicit and clear electric current from the Sun energizes the Earth’s magnetosphere.

It has been measure by NASA. What else is the ‘flux transfer event’?

DrFlimmer asks: “But can you imagine a universe that comes from ‘minus infinity’?”

No, what I can do is be humble and say, “Science doesn’t know.” There simply isn’t the data to come to a conclusion or even venture a speculation and then dress it up as a theory.

Science can’t determine how or if the Universe started — it may well have, but it is beyond the scientfic method to offer a theory.

You want to speculate how the Universe started, then by all means go ahead, but don’t call it a theory and whatever you do don’t act as if it’s a scientific certainty.

DrFlimmer, for a person who believes in the “big bang”, “dark matter”, “dark energy”, and “strange matter” you really have no room to say science has eliminated the possibility that energy doesn’t come into the Sun from intra-galactic electrical plasma currents. Science hasn’t even looked for them.

How do you know something isn’t there if you haven’t looked for it? And your discounting of dark mode currents as a possibility is unconvincing. But it can’t be ruled out.

But again, it’s important to say it’s (incoming energy to the Sun) a theory, it could be wrong — I’ll entertain that possibility because ANY theory could be wrong and at this point science hasn’t detected energy coming into the Sun which would need to happen.

Only if gravitational model proponents would be humble in the face of all the undetected “things” they say exist. The difference is that conventional astronomy has been looking for these “things” for a long time. Conventional astronomy hasn’t been looking for electrical plasma currents, yet, scientific evidence has been observed and measured supporting the proposition they exist.

Also, there is substantial other pieces of scientific evidence which supports the existence of electrical plasma currents which weren’t discussed, here, in this exchange.

Think about that.

Please notice this comment has repeated two seperate and substantial passages. It doesn’t advance the discussion to keep repeating scientific evidence. When that point in the discussion has been reached it’s time to conclude. Hopefully each side will take something from the discussion of the issues.

If you or any of your cohorts want to have the last word, be my guest.

DrFlimmer, Thank you for the discussion and interchange. It is my fixed and firm conviction that only by discussing differences of interpretation of scientific evidence will Man move closer to matching theory and reality.

I have been wondering about that first question you asked. He kept mentioning that the gravitational model has been falsified, but talked mostly about the black holes and large scale structures. He did mention that the birkeland currents between the sun and earth were the predominant interaction between the two bodies. This did make me wonder what he thought about earth’s orbit around the sun. He’s quite hung up on the 10^39 power difference between gravity and EM.

I have to also add that Anaconda has been taking black holes and dark matter much seriously than I have. Even if he’s completely opposed to these phenomenon. It’s bewildering how upset he is about the the scientific state of astronomy and astrophysics as he sees it. You’d think we were discussing the joys of clubbing baby seals.

I thought about this long and hard because I try and follow through with my stated intentions.

But DrFlimmer’s comment is symtomatic of the larger problem with current astronomy.

First, I stand corrected on the existence of “quarks”.

DrFlimmer states: “He is confusing currents with particle fluxes – that is his problem. A flux of electrons AND protons is NO current. He didn’t understand that.”

No, DrFlimmer, you demonstrate your ignorance of plasma physics and near space. Willful ignorance I will add and that is symptomatic of the problems of astronomy.

I outlined the statements of NASA more than once.

A Birkeland current is a focussed part of the solar wind which is defined: “The solar wind is a stream of charged particles—a plasma—ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun. It consists mostly of electrons and protons with energies of about 1 keV.” [keV is a measure of electrical energy](Per Wikipedia link below)

DrFlimmer, there are both electrons and ions which don’t recombine, but stay as seperated charged particles in the solar wind and Birkeland currents.

“A Birkeland current generally refers to any electric current in a space plasma, but more specifically when charged particles in the current follow magnetic field lines. They are caused by the movement of a plasma perpendicular to a magnetic field. Birkeland currents often show filamentary, or twisted “rope-like” magnetic structure. They are sometimes referred to as field-aligned currents. Originally Birkeland currents referred to electric currents that contribute to the aurora, caused by the interaction of the plasma in the Solar Wind with the Earth’s magnetosphere. The current flows earthwards down the morning side of the Earth’s ionosphere, around the polar regions, and spacewards up the evening side of the ionosphere…” (Per plasma dictionary link below)

Now compare the above definition with the following quote from the December 11, 2007 NASA report:

“A ‘magnetic rope’ is a twisted bundle of magnetic fields organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner’s rope. Spacecraft have detected hints of these ropes before, but a single spacecraft is insufficient to map their 3D structure. THEMIS’s five satellites were able to perform the feat.”

I hope you have enough comprehension to see these statements are similar.

Also note that this statement from NASA: “Flux Ropes Power the Magnetosphere!: THEMIS discovered a flux rope pumping a 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic.” (Per NASA linked below)

Amperes is a measure of ELECTRIC CURRENT. So, these Flux Transfer Events are pumping 650,000 Amps of electric current into the Earth from the Sun.

That is why NASA was willing to state: ““Flux Ropes Power the magnetosphere!” And, “30 kilovolt battery in space”

These consists of swirling streams of electrons and ions flowing in filaments along megnetic field lines, exactly as described by NASA.

Now if it was like you described and there was NO current then 650,000 Amps would not be flowing into the artic, now would it?

A flux of electrons AND protons in a state of charge seperation is an electric current.

DrFlimmer it is YOU who don’t understand.

And you admitted as much when you stated that you didn’t take your plasma physics class seriously.

You should have taken the hint when the commenter who followed up on your “neutrality” issue didn’t respond after my answer and another commenter tried to limit it to the space between the Sun and the Earth.

But you are so blinded by “faith” and the need to strike down anything that challenges your belief that you ignore scientifically recognized definitions of the solar wind, plasma, Birkeland currents, and even NASA reports to keep from having to recognize anything that causes cognitive dissonance and is scientific evidence in favor of electric currents in space.

That is what you call willfully having a closed-mind.

It’s sad, and troubling that your fellow commenters didn’t attempt to take you aside and explain it (of course, they had no obligation), but your stupid persistence in the face of the undeniable scientfic facts makes my point about the current posture of many in conventional astronomy:

[Anaconda] is confusing currents with particle fluxes – that is his problem. A flux of electrons AND protons is NO current. He didn’t understand that.

That’s the point that I tried to make above — any electric current must flow in a closed circuit!

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.” — Euripides.

Anyway, I did some digging around the Internet and I have come up with the following counter-arguments against the “Electric Sun/Universe” hypothesis, to which I have provided links below, and these articles speak conclusively:

We’re not going to get anywhere with dark matter and black holes between you and me. You’re willing to dismiss research and observations without really understanding the science behind them and I’m willing to let Astronomers go down whatever path they deem fit and I don’t care which hypotheses or theories are more reinforced or thrown out. That said I think that doing the simulation in the first article I posted is perfectly acceptable, regardless of the outcome from observations to follow.

You also mentioned Monsignor Georges LeMaître and the Pope. The Pope’s opinions and beliefs have nothing to do with science and astronomy in this case. I think you’re trying to poison the well by insinuating religious overtones.

“You don’t understand or appreciate the difference between computer simulations with known values and “guessed at” values — it’s the difference between night and day.”

Actually I do. I work with computers. I made my take and understanding of simulations clear in the section you partly quoted. It’s only good as the data fed in and the mathematical model used. Yes Peratt used our current understanding of plasma physics in his simulation, but this does not automatically mean the simulation will give accurate results. How close was the simulation to what’s actually observed? Just because you end up with a result looking like a spiral-armed galaxy does not automatically imply that was the method that created the galaxy.

There have been many simulations done of galaxy collisions using gravitational models. The results look strikingly similar to galaxies in collision from observation. There is even a java applet you can use to run simulations yourself. On Linux operating systems, there is a screen saver that does simplistic galaxy collision that still produce results remarkably similar to what’s observed. Here are some links that should be interesting regardless of your take on how galaxies are formed.

I was discussing with two colleagues (and I even ask an instructor who is actually working on solar physics (and all the related things)) about electric currents. And we agreed on the following:
Ampere is defined as Coulomb/s, or charge per unit time (through a cross sectional area). The charge is the sum of the elementary charges passing through the area. Protons/ions count with a positive sign and electrons with a negatve sign. That means, if we have equal amounts of electrons and protons, the sum of the charge in the flux tube is zero. This gives the result that the current is zero (but not the flux of particles!).

What I did now, I have overlooked the latest NASA-links you gave us. The texts never explicitly say that we have a current. They say that the magnetic tubes are guiding particles into the magnetosphere. And the particles are mostly protons and electrons. Their netcharge is zero – the flowing plasma is quasi-neutral, just as every plasma is. It loads the magnetosphere with plasma and if they are finally accelerated (probably by reconnection events) towards the poles to show us bright and beautiful auroras. This is just an “addition” to the acceptet model (probably how and when the magnetosphere is opened is new) and not an entire earth quake on solar physics.

The only thing that says something about a battery and a current of 650kA is that strange (not to say stupid) illustration. I say strange, because the picture isn’t saying anything else. Probably they wanted to illustrate that there is a flux (of particles) and used the familiar unit Ampere instead. And what is that battery? It is explained or discribed nowhere. I cannot count that as evidence for anything.

The NASA articles are quite clear. Particles are moving through the flux tubes into the magnetosphere and those particles are probably mostly protons and electrons which result in no electric current. As my instructer told me it is possible that the electrons and protons are accelerated differently in the tubes. But that would lead to electrostatic fields inside the tubes that would decelerate the electrons and accelerate the protons that we finally get a flux where electrons and protons are moving with the same speed through the tube again.

This also means that we do not need the sun on a potantial difference to the earth. This is not necessary. That is what the NASA articles are saying. Don’t give me that strange and not explained illustration again!

What I did now, I have overlooked the latest NASA-links you gave us. The texts never explicitly say that we have a current. They say that the magnetic tubes are guiding particles into the magnetosphere. And the particles are mostly protons and electrons. Their [net-charge] is zero – the flowing plasma is quasi-neutral, just as every plasma is. It loads the magnetosphere with plasma and if they are finally accelerated (probably by reconnection events) towards the poles to show us bright and beautiful auroras. This is just an “addition” to the [accepted] model (probably how and when the magnetosphere is opened is new) and not an entire earth quake on solar physics.

Again, that is basically what I had stated in my comment (click on my name) above, which proves that I can maintain critical thinking even when intoxicated with Stella Artois. I would suggest that you, DrFlimmer, should drink a bottle or two of some of that nice German lager that you have over there in Germany, to help you relax and not let those “Electric Universe” nutcases get to you!

LOL, but probably you are right, Ivan!
I was sitting at my university this morning and went almost crazy. I even checked the big Tipler for the definition of “Ampere”. Then I discussed it with two other students and with the mentioned instructur and was quite happy afterwards, because they all agreed with me. My instructor made a good comment:
“At first it is quite funny to discuss with those guys [like Anaconda], but later it starts getting on the nerves!”

But I would prefer Pils to Lager. But the German wheat beer is even better (there is nothing to a nice, cold “Erdinger Weißbier” (öhm, ß equals something like a “long-s” – it’s a special german letter; oh, and ö is another special letter )).

DrFlimmer, thanks for the beer tip — I must try some of that “Erdinger Weißbier”!

As for your spelling, may I suggest that you type out your comments on Microsoft Works [English] Word Processor — that’s where I got the “ß” from, which also has other special characters such as the German Umlaut (my English keyboard does not have them) — or OpenOffice 2.4, both of which will automatically underline in red any (probable) spelling errors, and then you simply “copy & paste” the completed article into the comment box.

This practice will also save you the frustration of having to type out your comment again, if the server at Discover “spams” your comment (D’oh!) for some inexplicable reason.

ND states: “You’re willing to dismiss research and observations without really understanding the science behind them and I’m willing to let Astronomers go down whatever path they deem fit and I don’t care which hypotheses or theories are more reinforced or thrown out.”

Wrong. I consider the research, but I don’t uncritically accept the results.

ND states: “I’m willing to let Astronomers go down whatever path they deem fit and I don’t care which hypotheses or theories are more reinforced or thrown out.”

That seems fine at first blush, but upon closer examination, what in means in practice is that you don’t apply critical reasoning and scepticism. You acccept whatever they say. I asked rhetorically in a prior comment: “Has science ever made a mistake? Or come to a wrong conclusion?” My answer is yes. And yes, I’m sceptical when the evidenciary foundation is so lacking as it is in astronomy.

Yes, I did. If you think that a man’s personal life experiences and, indeed, his most personal beliefs don’t have an impact on his opinions, world view, and even work, you don’t have a strong grasp of human nature.

ND states: “I take it that you no longer think that the dark matter/first stars simulation actually shows Birkeland currents after stating how inadequate a simulation it is.”

I don’t know what to make of that simulation, it’s interesting when given a “blank check” that they came up with a “Birkeland current” like formation. I tend to think, as I commented at the time, it goes to their mind set more than anything else.

@ DrFlimmer:

It seems there is a difference of definition. I have seen statements in the above linked works that suggest your definition is accepted by some in the scientific community, but there are others that accept the definition I use.

In my opinion, the definition I use is more accurate at the practical level because electrical energy is transfered and charge seperation is maintained.

Electrical energy is available to do work upon arrival at the Earth.

Say what you want, but ampere is a measure of electric current.

Also, if the Sun and the Earth where charge neutral and “isolated bodies” from each other. The Birkeland currents, ‘Flux Transfer Events’ would only randomly contact the Earth, but in fact they contact the Earth with surprising consistency, once every eight minutes.

Nobody here has contradicted this. Just because we may not buy everything you’re saying does not mean we’re stupid, closed-minded, uncritical and take theories as gospel. The history of science is full of theories and ideas that have been overturned or rethought.

And please don’t put your interpretations in my mouth! You’re putting down DrFlimmer and insulting him as brainwashed fool without even understanding the science that he’s studying.

As for the religious implications, that’s a cheap game you’re playing. BB has been evaluated on the science and evidence and not some sense of religious drive. In fact I’ve heard of at least one astronomer from the Vatican, who is also a priest, doing research along side other astronomers. And his papers and research is evaluated on scientific merit. Nothing else.

As for the simulation, you clearly said it was a Birkeland current. There can be more than one natural phenomenon that can generate similar looking phenomenon. Look at spiral galaxies and hurricanes as a quick and easy example. Look at the gravitational models of galaxy collisions. Their results look remarkably like what we see. Including the simulation that tries to explain the pinwheel style galaxy. I know you don’t believe that gravity is the cause of the shape and form of galaxis, you can’t ignore the fact that they look remarkably like what we observe. As a practitioner of the scientific method (should be “practitioner”) you have to take into account, that looking the same does not mean the same.

That said I would like to put forth another point which I hope we can agree on, as you did with my point regarding articles on science news. The strength of a scientist’s credentials and scientific background and experience can not be taking into account on how correct a theory or idea, that they support, is. That is not factored in with the scientific method. It all comes down to the strength of the evidence and observations that support them. A scientist can work for 30 years on an idea and still have it turn out wrong. They could be Nobel laureates but their next great idea could completely flop. This applies to any scientist that is a human being. I think you understand this, but still emphasized the scientific credentials of the proponents of plasma cosmology.

Are YOU really going to say that you know MORE than an instructor, a researcher on the field we are actually discussing??? YOU? Who has NEVER seen a physics departmend from the inside? Do you really want to say this? REALLY?

Probably you should think about this again!

“Electrical energy is available to do work upon arrival at the Earth.”

No, it’s not the electrical energy! It is the kinetic energy of the particles. But I think you have never heard of that term, didn’t you?
The solar wind consists of protons and electrons of EQUAL amounts. That is FACT. It is measured and observed ALL the time by SOHO and other satallites! Now, will you shut up, please?

You state: “Nobody here has contradicted this.” Please, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary of your position, or should I say faith, you bend over backwards to ignore evidence that contradicts your position or supports Plasma Cosmology.

If fact, you, ND, are still defending that stupid link that falsely stated “dark” matter was “discovered” 70 years ago. And the evidence wasn’t overwhelming then and it still isn’t today, yet you go running around spreading pap that says “dark matter” has been proved. All that has been proved is that the gravitational model has been falsified — read that falsified — without “dark matter” hence, your overwhelming desire to evangelize “dark matter”.

ND, you have mentioned galaxy collisions, in fact, there was predicted “gravity waves”, but in 2007, LIGO had the opportunity to detect “gravity waves”, but failed to do so.

The article is quoted, thus: “During the intense blast of gamma rays, known as GRB070201, the 4-km and 2-km gravitational-wave interferometers at the Hanford facility were in science mode and collecting data. They did not, however, measure any gravitational waves in the aftermath of the burst.”

ND states: “[Y]ou have to take into account, that looking the same does not mean the same.” Yes, I already stated as such.

ND states: “You’re putting down DrFlimmer and insulting him as brainwashed fool without even understanding the science that he’s studying.”

DrFlimmer, don’t have a cow. I didn’t say I knew more, I implied that I wasn’t surprised by his agreeing with you, even in the face of the fact that Birkeland currents carry electric currents. Although, as I stated in my previous comment, there is a definition you can latch onto, but the definition I used is more accurate.

Electrical energy is reaching the Earth from the Sun.

DrFlimmer, judging by your answers, you need to be objective.

Your answers are those of somebody who drinks the Kool-Aid.

You are being lead astray by your instructors or somebody. Amps is not a measurement of kinetic energy — no matter how hard you try and spin — facts are stubborn things.

Yes, I have heard of kinetic energy, it is the energy of inertia, or motion.

But get this through your thick head, kinetic energy and electric energy are not the same. Science doesn’t use amperes to measure kinetic energy.

We have a great American philosopher, his name is Forest Gump. He said of people like you, “stupid is, as stupid does.”

Anybody, who insists that NASA is wrong or that amps measures kinetic energy as opposed to electrical energy, doesn’t understand science very well, no matter how long they have been studying it.

Anybody, who insists plasma currents which have charge seperation don’t have electrical potential, simply doesn’t understand the basics of science very well.

Math is good, but it’s no substitute for commonsense.

Amps is a meaurement of ONE thing, ELELCTRIC CURRENT.

FIGURE THAT OUT — DrFlimmer.

The fact that you proceed to attempt to spin something that can’t be spun, tells me you have little understanding of basic scientific principles, and no feel for scientific reasoning.

If you got a link for that evidence please provide it, I’m all ears, but if you don’t have authority for your point, you need to back off.

Face up to it, the NASA reports utterly contradict your infantile understanding. NASA is quite clear: Electrical potential is reaching the Earth. Let’s be more direct: Electric currents are reaching the Earth from the Sun. why? Because there is charge seperation in the Birkeland currents that NASA is reporting on.

Do you understand the concept of charge seperation? Apparently not.

DrFliimer won’t face up to the fact that charge seperation exists in plasma and in Birkeland currents. It wouldn’t be plasma if there wasn’t charge seperation.

And when electrons and positive ions flow together in a state of charge seperation there is electric potential, as well as kinetic potential.

And your point regarding LIGO is, what, gravity waves don’t exist? Here’s a quote from the same article.

“The absence of a gravitational-wave signal meant GRB070201 could not have originated in this way in Andromeda. Other causes for the event, such as a soft gamma-ray repeater or a binary merger from a much further distance, are now the most likely contenders.”

According to this and other articles, it wasn’t clear that the GRB originated in M31 to begin with. They expected to detect gravitational waves *if* it was in M31. The GRB was detected along the line of sight with one of Andromeda’s arms. What’s significant about this event is that LIGO is in a position to help in determining the distance to such very short GRBs by combining it with other GRB detectors.

This does not in any way disprove gravitational waves since the source of potential gravitational waves was not a completely known quantity. Specifically it’s distance. If it was know for sure that the GRB was in M31 and no GWs were detected, then it would be more significant.

Now, if LIGO or LISA definitively show that there are no gravitational waves, a very important prediction of GR, then GR will need to be rethought. A positive or negative result will be significant either way.

There is a very important *indirect* evidence for gravitational waves:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulse-Taylor_binary

Since this isn’t a direct measurement of GWs, we await for further results from LIGO and other GW detectors in the works.

I had forgot about LIGO. Thanks for reminding me.

“ND states: “You’re putting down DrFlimmer and insulting him as brainwashed fool without even understanding the science that he’s studying.”

Gee. The only place where I ever saw “Amps” in the NASA articles was this stupid illustration. I don’t know who the guy is who made it, but it is defenetly not a proove or evidence of anything.
I damn know what “Ampere” is. I told you in one of my lasts posts. Its defined as charge per second (through an area). And the area is abitrary, btw. But the charges are counted. Electrons count with a negative sign and protons with a positive sign. And it doesn’t matter how they are going through the area. They can be seperated or not. It just doesn’t matter. It’s only the plain number that counts. And if we have equal amounts of electrons and protons coming through our area (probably we choose the magnetic flux tube’s cross section) we have NO current, we have ZERO Amps! That is the definition!
Now.

oh. So why are you screaming at me? I don’t know and you don’t know, either. BUT I have something else: That is the observation that (almost) every plasma is quasi-neutral, that the solar wind contains equal amounts of particles (SOHO is measuring it all the time) – why should a flux tube that’s just connecting the solar and the earth’s magnetic field contain other numbers?
You mentioned potentials. You know what the difference is between gravity and charges? The potentials of masses will always ADD. If you have some mass and put some other mass to it the potential will increas and masses will always attract each other.
For charges this is different! First: If you have some positive charges and put in some negative charges the potentials will equal out and you have no potential any more. Also charges tend to equal out potentials, “they don’t like them” so to speak. That means: Charges with an opposite sign (and an opposite potential) attract eacht other (contrary to gravity) and charges with the same sighn repel each other.
That means, if we have equal amounts of charges in a flux tube, their potentials (and electric fields btw, because the electric field is just the gradient of the potential) equal out. Just a few steps away the potential will drop to zero!

And believe it or not, I know that the unit of the kinetic enegry is Joule. I think you are not actually thinking about what I wrote – you just went over it and respond to it, but didn’t give it at least one thought!
Since I rejected that stupid illustration there was no more mention of Amps (that I could remember). The articles never mentioned Amps! And if we take them as the basis for this little discussion then you cannot claim that it is “electrical energy” that is dumped in the magnetosphere. My mention of kinetic energy was just a consideration of the term “energy”. The particles do have energy that can be dumped into the magnetosphere. And I think that kinetic energy is quite something they can spend.

Oh. You are so meticulously in your definition. Then I want to tell you that there is nothing like a “kinetic potential”. It’s kinetic energy, it does not have a potential.

You say, we have no measurments what is coming through the flux tubes. Ok. That means that you will not believe a word I said – and I have no reason to believe you. And since you even do not believe a researcher that is actually working on that field (why should he “lie” to me? There is no reason for him! I will accept every answer he gives me (but not without thinking about it, of course!), because he knows!) all my arguments are talked in vain.

One more thing:

“plasma currents which have charge seperation don’t have electrical potential”

As I said: charges with an opposite sign tend to cancel out the potential. They don’t need to recombine, in fact. They will just be very close to each other, so that the potential is as low as possible. Between two opposite charges that are seperated there is a potential, of course. But it’s only between the particles. If you do the calculations (basic calculations for undergraduated students in a course about electrodynamics!) you will find that the potential a little bit away from the particles will drop to zero. The divergence of the electric field is zero! That means that there is neither a source nor a drain (hopefully these are the correct terms ) of an electric field (that would normally be an electric charge – but it is zero inside a sphere that contains both particles).

“If you got a link for that evidence please provide it, I’m all ears, but if you don’t have authority for your point, you need to back off.”

Oh, and even in an atom the charges are separated! The protons are in the nucleus and the electrons are “flying” around it. So very close to the core you have a positve potential. But outside the atom the potential is zero because the electrons (although separated from the nucleus) are canceling out the potential.

So charge seperation is “everywhere” – and yet most things on earth are neutral and you don’t feel any potential at all. That is strange, is it not? (oh, that last one was ironic, of course!)

There hasn’t been any gravity wave detected, ever. So, the fact that there was a “prime candidate” and it came up empty is significant.

But there you go again. Even when it’s “your guys” that report no gravitation waves were detected, your immediate impulse is to blow it off and minimize the results. But I’ll take your follow up at face value and note that you do allow for the possibility that gravity waves won’t be detected which would impact the theory. Or gravity waves might be detected and then the champaign will flow.

(I give credit to the scientists for reporting the failure to make an observation and measurement — and, yes, not detecting something can be as significant as detecting something — it provides scientific evidence that falsifies a theory.)

You pay lip service to the idea that science makes mistakes, but in practice, your words are to the contrary.

@ DrFlimmer:

Please, you’re getting ridiculous.

DrFlimmer states: “The only place where I ever saw “Amps” in the NASA articles was this stupid illustration.”

And I suppose NASA allowed some rogue cartoonist to “hijack” their article and news release?

DrFlimmer states: “And if we have equal amounts of electrons and protons coming through our area (probably we choose the magnetic flux tube’s cross section) we have NO current, we have ZERO Amps!”

DrFlimmer, your intellectual backflips don’t make you look good. Your own statement contradicts yourself. The report and schematics are clear, 650,000 amps came through (oh, I forgot the 650,000 amps was inserted by a rogue cartoonist!).

DrFlimmer states: “That is the definition!” And the NASA report contradicts it. You seem to overlook that I have presented definitions, too. But, of course, anything that contradicts your world view is to be dismissed out of hand. (Even official documents!)

(Yes, I know, nothing is allowed that threatens the conventional astronomy view that electric currents don’t exist in space.)

But your contortions, you only look, as I stated above, ridiculous.

“[Q]uasi-neutral” nice wiggle word. I’ll give you a point just for that.

The above link lays out the observations and measurement of a solar flare. Note the particles didn’t come in an equal mix, rather in sequencial order, which surprised the scientists — imagine that. Now, I’ll grant you that this isn’t conclusive of anything, but it does suggest your assertion that an equal amount of electrons and positive ions always happens, doesn’t always happen.

DrFlimmer states: “So why are you screaming at me?” I don’t accept your assumption that electrons and ions are equal, frankly it wouldn’t matter if they were equal. The key is charge seperation. And it’s apparent you did miss out on your plasma physics because you completely fail to grasp the concept of ‘double layers’.

Here, I’ll lay it out so even a child can read it:

Term: Double layer

Definition:

A double layer is an electric charge separation region that forms in a plasma. It consists of two oppositely charged parallel layers, resulting in a voltage drop and electric field across the layer, which accelerates the plasma’s electrons and positive ions in opposite directions, producing an electric current. Large potential drops and layer separation may accelerate electrons to relativistic velocities (ie close to the speed of light), and produce synchrotron radiation. Double layers may be found anywhere that plasmas are found, from discharge tubes to space plasmas to the Birkeland currents supplying the Earth’s aurora. And although plasmas are highly electrically conductive, a property that tends to neutralised charges, double layers may self-generate, or form when two plasma regions with different properties come into contact. The physics of double layers are also utilised to produce ion thrusters, such as the Helicon Double Layer Thruster. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_layer. See also Nicholson, Dwight R. _Introduction to Plasma Theory_, Krieger Publishing Co., Malabar, FL, 1992.

“Double layers may be found anywhere that plasmas are found, from discharge tubes to space plasmas to the Birkeland currents supplying the Earth’s aurora.”

It brutally apparent, you simply have no clue about the concept of charge seperation.

But I understand why you refuse to understand: You are an aspiring acolyte in the “priesthood” of astrophysics. It wouldn’t do to adopt a heresy:

“One of the basic assumptions of astrophysics today is that electrical forces play no part in cosmology because “you can’t get charge separation in space”. But x-ray images of space objects tell a different story.”

“Standard phrases show up in astronomical lectures and debates, from elementary documentaries to the most advanced texts: “You can’t get charge separation in space;” “The solar wind consists of ions [protons] flowing from the sun (with enough electrons to ensure neutrality;)” “… with the need for electrical neutrality paramount …;” “The necessity for electrical neutrality then forces the details of the decays to be …;” or even “Of course there’s electricity in space, but it doesn’t DO anything.”

“The above spectrum was obtained by the Chandra orbiting x-ray camera in December of 1999. The subject is a tiny point-source of x-rays (a small, coherent cloud or the top of a coherent stream) embedded in the nucleus of an active spiral galaxy named NGC 4458 (upper image.)

The elements in the x-ray spectrum are identified by their chemical symbols: O = oxygen, Mg = magnesium, etc. The roman numerals refer to the number of electrons that have been stripped from these elements. By consulting a periodic table of elements, you can calculate how many electrons are left. In this very active region of space, we see:

Mg XII — Magnesium with all 12 of its electrons missing
Ne X — Neon with all 10 electrons missing
Ne IX — Neon with all but 1 electron missing
O VIII — Oxygen with all 8 of its electrons missing
O VII — Oxygen with all but 1 electron missing
N VII — Nitrogen with all 7 of its electrons missing
C VI — Carbon with all 6 of its electrons missing

‘Double layers’ in turn generate electric currents, as a result of charge seperation, as has been demonstrated in the laboratory by experiment and then observed and measured.

Obviously, you can discount the source, but the observations and measurements where made by the Chandra orbiting x-ray camera.

DrFlimmer states: “Since I rejected that stupid illustration there was no more mention of Amps.”

Again, do you think NASA is a bunch of bozos who let a rogue cartoonist place that the amps measurement surreptitiously?

Seriously, are you that desperate to disallow the concept that you accuse NASA of intentional deception?

I think it is you who are engaged in self-deception.

DrFlimmer states: “‘kinetic potential’. It’s kinetic energy, it does not have a potential.”

Yes, there is such a thing, as a side note. Kinetic potential energy happens when an object is held above the ground. The potential is derived from the kinetic energy that would be generated if it drops. Water behind a dam has kinetic potential energy (water flowing down through the generators).

An object held out a 20th story window has kinetic potential energy, until it is dropped then it has kinetic energy.

Can you point to authority. That’s the best way on the internet. Right?

DrFlimmer states: “ridiculous illustration!”

So now an official NASA schematic put out for scientific and public consumption is ridiculous.

Thank you for your answer that you believe that gravity is what is operating to keep the moon in its orbit around Earth. A followup to this. You stated that the EM force overpowers gravity (or something to that effect). At what point does this happen? Is there a certain distance? Is it dependent on the size of the EM source?

As to my second set of quesitons:

How powerful is the electromagnetic force when acting on small, but still macroscopic bodies? when acting on large bodies?

Let’s just give a range of sizes of objects: something the size of a penny, something the size of a person, an elephant, a skyscraper, an asteroid, a moon, an Earth-like planet, a gas giant, a star. Does the strength of the EM force change depending on the size of the object? E.g., a penny on Earth vs. a penny on Jupiter. What about between a penny-size EM source and a human-sized EM source?

Btw, keep the name-calling an insults out of your posts, please. Be civil. None of the calling people stupid. Remember Phil’s posting guidelines: don’t be a jerk. That should apply to everyone. Argue the points, the ideas, but keep the personal insults out.

Yes but you missed on why it was significant. The distance to the source of potential GWs was not known. It *looked* like it may have come from M31. This important variable in the observation was critical and was not controlled for. “My guys” have not concluded that there are no gravity waves yet. They’re not satisfied and will be continuing their research. LIGO and the other upcoming GW experiments are set up to validate one of GRs important predictions. This needs to be done to validate GR even further. I understand the importance of positive and negative results from such endeavors. But GR has held up to experiements *so far* better then you realize or understand. That’s my stance on it, no matter how you try to twist it into mindless, blind devotion to today’s astrophysics.

From the very beginning you have shown very strong prejudices against whoever has looked at you or your claims skeptically. You have lumped them into one group and berated them. I am not doing research. I am not one of the scientists. I am in the sidelines like you and have no choice but to sit back and watch others do one of the highest intellectual endeavors humans can take part in. That said, I don’t have enough time to look at every exciting science news critically. You have come to believe that you can somehow think at the same level as scientists in the field without the deep knowledge of the field they’re in. I’m sorry but since you have not studied (not the same thing as believing) the science you’re discussing, there will always be a deep skepticism about the depth of your understanding. And you need this to see if what you’re reading makes sense or not.

You’re not going to change the views on plasma cosmology in a blog talking to us (with all do respect to Dr Plait’s efforts with Bad Astronomy). Maybe you should consider setting up a web site, like I suggested very early on, and invite professionals to scientific discussion on plasma physics. That might accomplish more and you seem to have the time and energy for it.

Sorry, Anaconda, but I am not able to take you seriously. You make it impossible for me. The energy that an object has that is holded above the ground is called potential energy (unless there is another name in the US or in the english speaking nations or somewhere else in the world – in Germany it is just called “potential energy”). And that energy is converted to kinetic energy if you drop it. And btw: Although energy and “potential” (NOT potential energy) have the same unit they are not the same in defintion. There are quite some differences. But since you know much better than I do, I won’t even try to explain it to you.

And you know everything better than I, than every other stundent, than every other physicist do, because obviously you understand the definition of Amps much better than anybody else does!

I=Delta q / t

where I is the current (in Amps), Delta q is the charge that flows through an area (in Coulomb) and t is the time (in seconds).

“Quasi-neutral” is not a wiggle word. It is the definition or the nature of a plasma as every plasma-physicist will tell you – but you know better, of course.

As I said, all I ever said here is talked in vain (since he refered to arguments that have long been cleared) – why am I still talking?

Anaconda: Why aren’t you actually working in plasma-physics on PC and EU since you know everything and you know everything MUCH MUCH MUCH better than anybody who has ever studied the thing at an university? The Nobel prize is waiting for you! You will be the hero of the 21. century. They will call you the new Einstein or the new Planck, the new Feynman, the new Schrödinger, the new Heisenberg. You will just top everybody.

So, just go ahead! Leave us kiddies here alone and do some good for the world!

I agree with your comment about name calling — that started about when kuhnegget got into the act and I didn’t roll over on his first assertion, but rather requested authority and his response was to state, “textbooks say,” and you and your theory are &*%^$$%^%!!, too.

I won’t sit back and be pilloried. But again your comment is right.

To the substance:

“You stated that the EM force overpowers gravity (or something to that effect). At what point does this happen?”

Good question. I can’t say with certainty. But at some level (admittedly unknown to me) electromagnetic forces do become predominate according to Plasma Cosmolgy theory.

Todd W. states: “Is there a certain distance? Is it dependent on the size of the EM source?”

I would suggest that distance plays a part, but also the strength of the EM source, or perhaps I should say the strength of the electromagnetic plasma currents. At present, the solar system is relatively neutral, yes, there are electromagnetic forces, not withstanding DrFlimmer comments, but gravity is controlling the orbits of the planets and moons.

To your second question. Okay, take a penny, EM has relatively little effect, a piece of iron, would have a bigger magnet effect. But it seems apparent where gravity holds sway — electromagnetic currents only have effect when directly applied, like a shock by sticking a fork in an electrical outlet. A elephant would not be as effected by a shock from an electrical outlet.

So, it depends on the size of the body and the intensity of the EM force.

Lightning provides a bigger shock than an electrical outlet.

Even an elephant would be dramatically impacted by a bolt of lightning.

I appreciate the question and examples — it makes me think. Your question is a perfect question for forcing one to “think through the theory.”

Big gas planets would have at least two different factors effecting them. The size of the planet and the intensity (Ampere and voltage) of the electromagnetic current. Also, the conductivity of the object would be important to know, the more conductivity would seem to increase the effect.

They above question was actually the kind of question I was expecting and invite.

It’s those kind of questions that eventually lead to meaningful conclusions about the efficacy of a theory or failure.

@ND:

Your first comment is reasonable and I’ll agree — time will tell with more sensitive detectors.

ND states: “From the very beginning you have shown very strong prejudices against whoever has looked at you or your claims skeptically.”

No, I would state that I was unwilling to agree with those that “outright” rejected the theory. Particularly, those that did that by fiat with no reasons given. I dispute individual arguments as they are made.

Most of the arguments were not based on reasonable scepticism, but rather closed-minded prejorative stances. And even in the face of strong scientific evidence, there was no bending.

Obviously, on some issues there is going to be complete disagreement. I recognize it would have been better to start a discussion with what can be agreed to, but the nature of this post prevented that. And then the reasons for my objection necessarily led into a discussion of Plasma Cosmology.

Almost by definition, one has to have an alternative theory as a basis to postulate objections to majority theories.

I suspect that is one reason, among others, why Plasma Cosmology is objected to so strongly by mainstream astronomy, without a plausible alternative, there really is no place to go to for those who has objections, and thus the majority view continues on unabated.

ND states: “You have come to believe that you can somehow think at the same level as scientists in the field without the deep knowledge of the field they’re in.”

No, it’s the exact opposite. They have such “deep knowledge” that they fail to recognize the serious limitations of the theories they study and confirmational bias creeps into their work and they seemingly refuse to consider other theories.

You’re quite right that I won’t change anybodies’ minds, here, in the present discussion, but others that aren’t so hard and fast to astronomy’s trinity of “big bang”, “black holes”, and “dark matter” who chance to come across this argument may keep an open-mind and then research further, on their own.

Also, it does clarify my critical thinking and allows me to see the objections of mainstream astronomy. And the quality of their arguments.

I won’t be run off by what I think are less than compelling arguments.

Which was what kuhnegget was attempting to do and others employed a milder version of that style. Others were engaged in good faith discussion. Others were engaged in good faith discussion until they saw themselves losing, then dropped into a “hunkered down” approach.

The reality is that almost all people want to appear to be reasonable especially if they think they have the high ground. It is only when they feel themselves losing and under pressure, do we see their true colors or real attitudes come forth. I think this discussion illustrated some of the above.

@ DrFlimmer:

Guess what, DrFlimmer, in the U.S. there is reference to potential kinetic energy. It is referred to all the time in relation to hydroelectric damns.

Notice DrFlimmer has dropped the ridiculous notion that NASA allowed a rogue cartoonist to place the 650,000 amp statement into their news release.

Of course, since you probably still believe NASA is deceiving the scientific public, you could dig into their reports and see where they got the 650,000 amp figure from, and how they measured it and so forth.

Now, you might think that is my job, but no it’s not because I’m not challenging the figure, you are. So by all means, dig into the report and see if you can prove they are incompetent or lying.

DrFlimmer, I didn’t say it wasn’t a definition, there are plenty of definitions that are themselves “wiggle words”.

The reason I gave you the point, in an ironic fashion is because by using the qualifier “quasi” that in itself is an acknowledgment of sorts that plasma is not strictly neutral like you were trying desperately to pass off.

You never did respond to the concept of ‘charge seperation’ and the scientifically recognized fact that it creates electric currrents due to ‘double layers’. (Note, I supplied a definition of both ‘double layer’ and ‘Birkeland currents’ which explicitly addressed exitence of electric current.)

Of course, DrFlimmer, you ignore the definitions I provided and the evidence, and, rather, end up whining and complaining about me being a “know-it-all”.

Not your high point in the discussion.

The truth is that I’m not, I simply present what I have studied and have knowledge about, but I won’t stand by and let you ignore the facts and then act like you won the argument.

“The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed– inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, there would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory. In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory…”

There are 292 signers of the above statement 187 of which are from scientfic institutions or universities.

Review the whole statement and the signatories.

DrFlimmer, your dropping into attempted mockery and ridicule in the face of your failure to acknowledge NASA, the definitions, or any other piece of evidence I provided in my last comment or frankly, all of my comments, shows that ND was speaking about you, more acurrately than about me.

After all, I acknowledged that you were referring to a definition, I simply supplied reasons why I thought my definitions were more accurate.

It is you, DrFlimmer, that refused to acknowledge a single piece of evidence. Although, you did for a brief instant when the NASA documents were first linked to, but then when somebody else made an objection that was refuted by further explanation and offer of definition, authority, and distinction, you then “hunkered down” to the point of stating NASA was “riduculous.”

That’s the moment when every reader of this discussion knew you lost it.

And you padded the impression with this last comment.

But I would still invite you, away from this discussion, in the quite of your own thoughts, to do the research with an open mind.

Look at the evidence. The observations and measurements.

Perhaps, that was my advantage, if any, that I already had rearched your side of the argument and, of course, my side, too.

Yes, there is [Kinetic potential], as a side note. Kinetic potential energy [WTF?!] happens when an object is held above the ground. The potential is derived from the kinetic energy that would be generated if it drops. Water behind a dam has kinetic potential energy (water flowing down through the generators).

Anaconda, I think that you must have bunked-off high-school that day when they did Potential Energy at Physics class!

Gravitational Potential Energy is the potential energy associated with gravitational force. If an object falls from point A to point B inside a gravitational field, the force of gravity will do positive work on the object and the gravitational potential energy will decrease by the same amount.

For example, consider a book that has been placed on top of a table. When the book is raised from the floor to the table, the gravitational force does negative work. If the book is returned back to the floor, the exact same (but positive) work will be done by the gravitational force. Thus, if the book is knocked off the table, this work (called potential energy) goes to accelerate the book and is converted into kinetic energy. When the book hits the floor, this kinetic energy is converted into heat and sound by the impact — this is what happens when a building is razed by controlled demolition.

The factors that affect an object’s gravitational potential energy are its height relative to some reference point, its mass, and the strength of the gravitational field it is in. Thus, a book lying on a table has less gravitational potential energy than the same book on top of a taller cupboard, and less gravitational potential energy than a heavier book lying on the same table. An object at a certain height above the Moon’s surface has less gravitational potential energy than at the same height on Earth because the Moon’s gravity is weaker.

Gravitational potential energy has a number of practical uses, notably the generation of hydroelectricity. For example, at the Dinorwig Power Station in Wales, there are two lakes, one higher than the other. At times when surplus electricity is not required (and so is cheap), water is pumped up to the higher lake, converting the electrical energy to gravitational potential energy. At times of peak demand for electricity, the water flows back down through turbines, converting the potential energy into kinetic energy and then back into electricity.

P.S. I think that “Anaconda” is displaying the same symptoms of neurological disorder that one observes in anorexics — thin people who are convinced they need to lose weight, to the point of putting themselves at risk. Place them on scales and they will say that the scales are wrong! Show them their emaciated reflection in a mirror and they will insist that they see an obese person. Try reason with them and they accuse you of being part of the conspiracy to make them fat!

Hmm… I take it that you reside in Australia, then? Well, I think that, since it is high summer down under, you have been out in the sun for far too long — only mad dogs & Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun!

I will probably talk about ‘double layers’ later, when I have more time. Only one thing for now.
In front of me there is a book “Fundamentals of Plasma Physics” by Paul M. Bellan, a Professor at Caltech. It’s rather new (2006). But, although it is very thick, I found nothing about double layers. I found something about Positron-Electron- or Electron-Ion-streaming-instabilities (what I suppose is quite similar to double layers), but still nothing on double layers. Strange.

Oh, of course, Anaconda, I forgot. Since textbooks are part of the big (bang) conspiracy you do not accept them as an argument. As I said, I have my own thoughts about double layers relying on the definition you gave above. Wait for it. When I find some time lying about somewhere for explaining (and drawing probably ) I will say what I think about them.

PZ Myers of Pharyngula fame has pointed me to an online petition that was apparently first published in New Scientist. No, it’s not complaining about the Bush administration making a travesty of science (although David Appell points to one of those, too); it’s about the terrible dominance of the Big Bang model.

The complaints are not new. The Big Bang just rubs some people the wrong way, and they won’t believe in it no matter how many successes it accumulates. Some of the disbelief stems from religious conviction, but in other cases it seems to be a particular kind of philosophical outlook. Most of the skeptics, of course, have their own favorite alternatives. The most popular is undoubtedly the Steady-State model (or one of its increasingly twisted modern incarnations), but there is also something called the “plasma cosmology”, championed by the late Nobel Laureate Hannes Alfvén. (His Nobel was for plasma physics, not cosmology; and the fact that he was Swedish didn’t hurt.) If you want to know in detail why the various alternatives are wrong, Ned Wright tells you.

Here is the kind of thing the petition says:

What is more, the big bang theory can boast of no quantitative predictions that have subsequently been validated by observation. The successes claimed by the theory’s supporters consist of its ability to retrospectively fit observations with a steadily increasing array of adjustable parameters, just as the old Earth-centered cosmology of Ptolemy needed layer upon layer of epicycles.

Really? How about acoustic peaks in the power spectrum of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background? [T]he polarization signal, and its spectrum? [T]he baryon density as deduced from light-element abundances agreeing with that deduced from the CMB? [T]he baryon fluctuations in the power spectrum of large-scale structure? [T]he transition from acceleration to deceleration in the Hubble diagram of high-redshift supernovae? [T]he relativistic time delay in supernova light curves? These are just the very quantitative predictions that have come true in the last few years; the Big Bang has had a long history of many observational successes. (This is a very incomplete list; usually one doesn’t pay much attention to straightforward tests of the Big Bang framework, since they are taken for granted.)

[However], here is the important issue, again from the petition:

Whereas Richard Feynman could say that “science is the culture of doubt”, in cosmology today doubt and dissent are not tolerated, and young scientists learn to remain silent if they have something negative to say about the standard big bang model. Those who doubt the big bang fear that saying so will cost them their funding.

Something actually interesting is being raised here: at what point does a scientific theory become so well-established that it’s no longer worth listening to alternatives?

There’s no easy answer. Scientific theories are never ‘proven’ correct; they simply gather increasing evidence in their favor, until consideration of alternatives becomes a waste of time. Even then, they are typically only considered correct in some domain. Einstein’s general relativity, for example, works very well in a certain regime, but that doesn’t stop us from considering alternatives that may be relevant outside that regime.

So, shouldn’t we devote a certain fraction of our scientific resources, or our high-school and secondary curricula, to considering alternatives to the Big Bang, or for that matter Darwinian evolution? No. Simply because resources are finite, and we have to use them the best we can. It is conceivable in principle that the basics of the Big Bang model (an expanding universe that was much hotter and denser in the past) are somehow wrong, but the chances are so infinitesimally small that it’s just not worth the bother. If individual researchers would like to pursue a non-Big-Bang line, they are welcome to do so; that’s what tenure is for, to allow people to work out ideas that others think are a waste of time. [However], the community is under no obligation to spend its money supporting them. [Of course], young people who disbelieve in the Big Bang are unlikely to get invited to speak at major conferences, or get permanent jobs at research universities. Likewise astrophysicists who believe in astrology, or medical doctors who use leeches to fight cancer. Just because scientific claims are never proven with metaphysical certainty doesn’t mean we can’t ever reach a conclusion and move on.

[Moreover], to be sure, the alternatives to the Big Bang are just silly. Usually, I try to keep my intellectual disagreements on the level of reasoned debate, rather than labeling people I disagree with as “dumb” (that I reserve for the President); but in this case I have to make an exception. They just aren’t, for the most part, very smart. Consider this quote by Eric Lerner, petition signatory and author of The Big Bang Never Happened:

No Conservation of Energy
The hypothetical dark energy field violates one of the best-tested laws of physics–the conservation of energy and matter, since the field produces energy at a titanic rate out of nothingness. To toss aside this basic conservation law in order to preserve the Big Bang theory is something that would never be acceptable in any other field of physics.

Actually, there is a field of physics in which energy is not conserved: it’s called general relativity. In an expanding universe, as we have known for many decades, the total energy is not conserved. Nothing fancy to do with dark energy — the same thing is true for ordinary radiation. Every photon loses energy by red-shifting as the universe expands, while the total number of photons remains conserved, so the total energy decreases. An effect which has, of course, been observed.

Just because a person doesn’t understand general relativity doesn’t mean they are dumb, by any means. [However], if your professional activity consists of combating a cosmological model that is based on GR, you shouldn’t open your mouth without understanding at least the basics. So if I get to decide whether to allocate money or jobs to one of the bright graduate students working on some of the many fruitful issues raised by the Big Bang cosmology, or divert it to a crackpot who claims that the Big Bang has no empirical successes, it’s an easy choice. Not censorship, just sensible allocation of resources in a finite world.

I have some points (and some are quite contrary to my intention this morning ).

First:

I was about to say something to your definition of double layers. The brief one you gave above was quite strange to me, and I would have rejected it by making an analogy. I compared it to a capacitor with the disadvantage that the layers are not solid and hence the electric field would have accelerated the layers towards each other in an attempt to cancel out the field. Of course the kinetic energy would lead to something like an oscillation but that would have been all. I couldn’t imagine how this would have led to a current.
Well. I just checked your Wikipedia-link. It is quite interesting. And I must admit that I cannot reject that. I was aware of instabilities that can occur in plasmas. But I didn’t know about the resulting effect of double layers. The thing is interesting to consider. If I find time in the next few days I will go and ask a professor at my university about it (a plasma physicist, of course).

Second:

I apologize. My rejection of any current in space is, of course, wrong. Tom Marking gave the van-Allen-belt (in the “Black-Hole-Wind” thread) and that is definitely a current “in space”. I should have known better.
(But a flux of particles remains a flux of particles unless the charges are separated and flow with different velocities. And I see no reason why the fluxes NASA has detected should do that.)

STILL (and here is the third thing)

many ideas you gave us are not true. The sun does not have an electrical field that is extending from its surface into outer space. The solar wind that contains ions/protons and electrons with the same velocity is the proof of that, because otherwise the electrons and ions/protons would have another velocity since an electric field accelerates or decelerates the particles depending on their charge and the properties of the field. Another point is, that we have never detected an incoming flux apart from cosmic rays, but since they are randomly distributed they cannot be count as a current as you are considering to power the sun – otherwise they would “power” the earth, too, but obviously they do not.
Also the interior of the sun is understood quite well. Solar-seismology gave us many clues confirming the theory how the sun is powered and how its structure looks like. There is a radiative zone on top of the core. Then there is the convective zone. The solar surface shows a bubble-like structure, just like a pot of boiling water. The behavior of these granules is exactly as you would expect from convection. Hot material is rising and cool material is falling. I have explained this already in this discussion.
Your rejection of neutron stars and black holes is another thing. Neutron stars have been observed directly. The effects of black holes (we cannot see them directly, of course!) have been studied well. By the time I am writing this you have not come up with a good explanation about the motion of stars around the center of the galaxy. A mass of about 10^6 solar masses can do that. But such a dark mass in such a small space has to be a (super massive) black hole.

To sum this up: I apologize for the mistakes I did, but I still do not agree with you on many of your assumptions.

Now, a word about NASA:
My point was that I carefully checked all the articles you gave us and I found neither a mention of a “30kV battery” nor of “650kA” in the texts. They didn’t even say something about currents (if I remember correctly). The only thing that mentions these effects is this graphic. But the graphic is neither shown nor explained somewhere else. That is the problem. The illustration is quite clear, indeed. But the lack of explanation about observations that led to the creation of the graphic is what bothers me. Without that graphic the NASA articles are quite interesting but I think there not more than an addition to what is already known and I think it can be explained without assuming a sun with an electric field (that the sun doesn’t have for obvious reasons I presented above).

(It’s good to take a break and do research for a while, but now back in the fray.)

@ IVAN3MAN:

The author of the response states: “…and they won’t believe in it no matter how many successes it accumulates.”

Frankly, it hasn’t accumulated a lot of successes. There are more problems with “big bang” theory than successes.

The author states: “…but in other cases it seems to be a particular kind of philosophical outlook.”

No, the problem is based on a lack of supporting scientific observation and measurement and contradictory observation and measurement, if you call that a “philosophical outlook,” then fine, I’ll subscribe to that critique, but your implication is obvious enough, the objections are based on ideosyncratic characteristics of the scientists.

The author is ignoring the contradictions to “big bang” theory.

As for “big bang” “successes”: “How about acoustic peaks in the power spectrum of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background? [T]he polarization signal, and its spectrum? [T]he baryon density as deduced from light-element abundances agreeing with that deduced from the CMB? [T]he baryon fluctuations in the power spectrum of large-scale structure? [T]he transition from acceleration to deceleration in the Hubble diagram of high-redshift supernovae? [T]he relativistic time delay in supernova light curves?”

These don’t shed a lot evidentiary light on the accuracy of the theory. Why? Because these are adhoc observations that get ‘giggled’ to fit the “Big bang” theory.

The author ignores the biggest problem of “big bang” theory: “Something out of nothing.” That’s a miracle by another name. Science doesn’t do “miracles.” And no matter how this debate is spun, that’s ultimately what big bang theory is: A miracle dressed up as science, which is a complete disregarding of the scientific method.

So, then the author, after giving lip service to the scientific method, makes his main case:

“Big bang” theory is so well proven that to look at any other theory is a waste of time.

It’s completely false and so completely self-serving that one wonders if he simply is writing for the “faithful” or a audience of open-minded people.

The arrogance is stunning. The author states: “[Should any resources be devoted to other lines of inquiry?] No. Simply because resources are finite, and we have to use them the best we can.”

IVAN3MAN, if this response is the best you can do, it really is a matter of time before the whole ediface crumbles.

The author goes on to state: “It is conceivable in principle that the basics of the Big Bang model are somehow wrong, but the chances are so infinitesimally small that it’s just not worth the bother.”

Translation: “I give lip service to the idea that “big bang” theory could be wrong, but I’ll contradict myself then say, no it’s so ‘right’ that to give any funds to anybody that questions “big bang” can’t be done (neither any opportunity to present contradicting scientific findings in mainstream scientific journals).

I appreciate you acknowledgement of electric currents in space. But please research it out on your own.

It’s a crucial point and one that you must be thoroughly convinced of either way, because onnce you understand the concepts of electromagnetism and plasma physics, and accept electromagntism happens in space, your whole perspecitve changes.

DrFlimmer: You questioned me about electrons flowing into the Sun and noted that hadn’t been detected. Well, research has led me to conclude that statement needs to updated: Science has detected evidence consistent with ‘backstreaming electrons’ flowing into the Sun:

“Onboard the ACE satellite is the Solar Wind Electron Proton Alpha Monitor (SWEPAM) which is designed for direct scrutiny of coronal mass ejections (CME), interplanetary shockwaves and the detailed solar wind structure. Using advanced three-dimensional interpretive instrumentation, SWEPAM will coordinate its observations with the Ulysses probe, currently in polar orbit about the Sun at approximately 673,191,000 kilometers distance.One of the more unusual discoveries by the ACE/SWEPAM mission is an electron depletion in the solar wind due to “backstreaming electrons” flowing into the Sun from the surrounding space.”

Again, I know the link is suspect to you, but it does document it’s authority for the assertions it makes.

Good question. I can’t say with certainty. But at some level (admittedly unknown to me) electromagnetic forces do become predominate according to Plasma Cosmolgy theory.

If you do not know the answer as to when it becomes dominant, how can you state that it is the EM force that shapes galaxies and/or the universe, and not gravity? You have admitted that gravity keeps the moon in orbit around Earth. Does gravity keep the Earth in orbit around the Sun, or is that EM? If it is EM, then why does it not pull the moon into an orbit that centers on the Sun instead of on the Earth? That seems to indicate that, at least in space close to Earth, gravity is stronger than EM. If gravity is what keeps Earth in orbit around the sun, then what keeps the Sun in orbit around its center of orbit (sorry, not an astronomer, so I don’t know the center of Sol’s orbit…is it the center of the galaxy?) The same questions then apply. If EM keeps Sol in its orbit, why does that EM force then not pull the planets and their moons out of their orbits around Sol and put them into orbit around Sol’s center-of-orbit? Again, it would appear that gravity is acting more strongly than EM, at least in terms of Sol’s “near” space. If, however, it is gravity that is keeping Sol in its orbit, then…and the progression continue in increasing scales.

Todd W. states: “Is there a certain distance? Is it dependent on the size of the EM source?”

I would suggest that distance plays a part, but also the strength of the EM source, or perhaps I should say the strength of the electromagnetic plasma currents. At present, the solar system is relatively neutral, yes, there are electromagnetic forces, not withstanding DrFlimmer comments, but gravity is controlling the orbits of the planets and moons.

Okay, so you kinda answer some of my questions above regarding whether it is EM or gravity. So, at least in terms of our solar system, gravity is a much stronger force than EM. So, that puts the point at which EM outpowers gravity as further than the distance from the Sun to the outermost planets and moons of our system. In other words, at the very least, in the distance from Sol to the outermost planets, the force of gravity drops off to a point beyond which EM force is stronger. I assume, then, that you have evidence that at least at that distance, EM takes over. Or evidence showing that at some point even further out, EM takes over.

Now, here’s a conundrum. Gravity keeps the moon in orbit around Earth. So, at that distance, gravity is more powerful than EM. However, if I have a small, but powerful magnet, I can lift something from the face of the planet, showing that EM, at that distance, is stronger than gravity. If I move the magnet a bit further away, I can no longer pick up the object, showing that at that distance, gravity has become stronger than EM. This experiment would suggest that, rather than gravity dropping off at astronomical distances and EM getting more powerful over that distance, EM instead drops off pretty darn quickly, while gravity stays stronger.

For your idea of EM holding galaxies together to work and for EM to overpower gravity, then you would need to have a wickedly huge power source for the EM. So, where is this power source? Do you have some study at hand that shows where this power source was detected? Also, if you admit that gravity is responsible for keeping the planets and moons in their orbits, how do you differentiate between gravity keeping things together vs. EM, at distances greater than those of a star system?

To your second question. Okay, take a penny, EM has relatively little effect, a piece of iron, would have a bigger magnet effect. But it seems apparent where gravity holds sway — electromagnetic currents only have effect when directly applied, like a shock by sticking a fork in an electrical outlet. A elephant would not be as effected by a shock from an electrical outlet.

Tying this in to your argument that EM forces give galaxies their structures, these examples would suggest that if a lightning bolt (an EM source) hits a penny, the penny would be drawn pretty rapidly toward the source of the lightning, overcoming gravity, due solely to the EM force, and not to the conversion of the energy to heat, sound, light or kinetic energy. Yet this is not observed.

Even an elephant would be dramatically impacted by a bolt of lightning.

Yes, the conversion of the elecrtical energy in the lightning to heat, sound and kinetic energy would potentially do some pretty significant damage to the elephant.

Big gas planets would have at least two different factors effecting them. The size of the planet and the intensity (Ampere and voltage) of the electromagnetic current. Also, the conductivity of the object would be important to know, the more conductivity would seem to increase the effect.

You stated that gravity keeps the planets and moons in their orbits, so how does EM affect a gas planet? What effect is predicted by your theories? How is the impact of conductivity of various gas planets on this effect measured?

I think I’ve got two surprises for you:
I actually read the text you linked to and I have no problems with “incoming” electrons.
Ulysses is closer to the sun than Jupiter. So it is possible that those electrons from “surrounding space” are actually from inside the solar system. Electrons are easily influenced by magnetic fields. That is the reason why the cosmic radiation is mostly composed of ions and protons (btw: incoming positive charges!). The electrons were taken away on their journey by the magnetic fields. So, incoming electrons are not that hard to get, they are just sent back on their journey outwards.
But what really matters concerning your link is that the author doesn’t give any numbers. He only states that there must be 43 times more incoming electrons than outgoing ions. But how many electrons are detected? Are they really from “outer space” or probably from inside the solar system? What is their energy-distribution since they are supposed to account for energizing the sun? Are they coming from random spots or are they channeled on the same way? The latter is what I suggest would be an interstellar current as is supposed, too.
And I have spoken about the granules on the sun’s surface in previous posts. They are nothing but convective zones. Doppler-shift tells us that fact. The middle (brighter hence hotter) part is moving upwards while the outer (darker hence cooler) part is moving downwards. That’s classic convection.

Btw: We have talked about radio waves and their generation in this discussion, too. I am quite surprised that I haven’t come up with this earlier. Have you ever heard of the 21-cm-line?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfine_structure
Just take a look at chapter 5.1. It is a (radio-) line of NEUTRAL hydrogen!!! Neutral hydrogen is not influenced by electromagnetic forces. And we see great amounts of that gas in other galaxies. And thanks to Doppler-shift we can measure the velocity-distribution of these big neutral clouds. And guess what? They are flying around the galaxy with the same velocity as the stars. And since they should not strongly interact with electromagnetic forces what other force other than gravity can keep them in the galaxy and on their trajectory around the galactic center?
(Probably the “force” – but if you have carefully checked what Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda are saying then you will know that the “force” must be dark matter ).

“So far, electromagnetic properties are the predominate interaction between the Sun and the Earth.”

This is from your post on January 8th, 2009 at 2:20 pm (wow that was quite a while ago. The month is almost over).

Specially in light of the recent discussion of the gravitational influence between earth/moon and earth/sun. How did you come to conclude that EM was the predominate interaction? What does it mean to begin with?

I chuckle when I see continued comments from you guys. What it tells me, and it should others, as well, is how threatened you guys are by somebody who has an understanding of Plasma Cosmology theory and insight into the contradictions and weaknesses of “big bang”, “black hole” theory.

@ ND:

Contrary to what you stated on another post about having no problem with electric currents in space, you spent most of this post objecting to that very idea.

Undoubtedly, you did object because you had not the foggiest notion what was going on, rather, because others were objecting and you followed along. ND: “Me, too!”

@IVAN3MAN:

Instead of being an obvious jerk-off, answer this question: Are electrical currents in space?

Simple question.

You know a person has hit bottom when they can’t respond to the merits of the comments.

Oh, IVAN3MAN, I saw another post where a commenter, who was an instructor at a graduate school of astronomy, bragged about looking to turn down admission to anybody who disbelieved the “big bang”. That’s worse than censorship, that’s a modern day inquisition or suppression of dissent. And this person commented on it, they felt so O.K. with turning people away who disagreed with them.

Yes, that’s open scientific inquiry, alright!

IVAN3MAN, you need to review the Los Alamos Laboratory link. If you have the intellectual integrity to do that.

Todd W. states: “You have admitted that gravity keeps the moon in orbit around Earth.”

Yes, but the question is what has shaped the planets? Gravity holds the planets in place at the present time, yet in a rather static and passive fashion, certainly not in any kind of dynamic way. Electromagnetism is the force responsible for shaping the planets, and, indeed, causing them to form in the first place.

Todd W. states: “That seems to indicate that, at least in space close to Earth, gravity is stronger than EM.”

If gravity is stronger than EM in space closer to Earth, how come no matter how high a building, electricity in wires will always go to the top against the force of gravity?

Also, Todd W. states: “If gravity is what keeps Earth in orbit around the sun, then what keeps the Sun in orbit around its center of orbit.” Yes, you were right, the center of the Sun’s orbit is the center of the galaxy. And, yes, this is fundamentally due to electromagnetic energies. The Sun is made-up of plasma, therefore, the force of electromgnetism, 10^39 power greater than gravity is what holds the Sun in it’s obit around the galaxy.

Again, Todd W. states: “So, at least in terms of our solar system, gravity is a much stronger force than EM.”

Definitions are important. EM is always stronger than gravity on a one-to-one basis. But, in our solar system which is relatively neutral, the presence of electromagneticism is quite small compared to gravity.

Todd W. states: “If I move the magnet a bit further away, I can no longer pick up the object, showing that at that distance, gravity has become stronger than EM.”

Your above quote is similar to your prior statement above: How massive is the Earth in relation to the small magnet? Of course, at a distance the immensity of the Earth is going to overwhelm a small magnet. The testimony to EM’s strength is that it has any effect at all against the immensity of the Earth and its resultant gravity — yet, it does.

Todd W. states: “This experiment would suggest that, rather than gravity dropping off at astronomical distances and EM getting more powerful over that distance, EM instead drops off pretty darn quickly, while gravity stays stronger.”

The scale you wish to ignore between a planet and a small magnet with a relatively weak magnetic field is stunning.

Todd W. states: “[H]ow do you differentiate between gravity keeping things together vs. EM, at distances greater than those of a star system?”

Gravity is passive and static, it doesn’t convey energy over great distances. Electromagnetism does convey energy over great distances. Here on Earth over great power lines and in intersteller and intergalactic space as well.

Nikola Tesla was a great discoverer of the Earth’s electromagnetic properties. In fact, he invented the electric motor, AC, alternating current, and many other inventions:

“This planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually no more than a small metal ball.” — Nikola Tesla

Todd W. states: “Tying this in to your argument that EM forces give galaxies their structures, these examples would suggest that if a lightning bolt (an EM source) hits a penny, the penny would be drawn pretty rapidly toward the source of the lightning, overcoming gravity, due solely to the EM force, and not to the conversion of the energy to heat, sound, light or kinetic energy. Yet this is not observed.”

Not all objects are magnetized. In fact, most objects on Earth are not magntized. Now, if the penny was melted and ionized into plasma with free electrons and positve ions, it most definitely would be attracted.

That is a property of copper, it is conductive of electrcity, but is not magnetized.

Todd W. states: “[H]ow does EM affect a gas planet?”

EM effects the atmosphere of the gas planet. Both Jupiter and Saturn have auroras. The energy in the atmosphere has much more to do with electromgnetism than radiant heat energy. Most likely that is true for the Earth as well.

Todd W. states: “How is the impact of conductivity of various gas planets on this effect measured?”

While I haven’t seen anything on this subject, it would seem to me, measurements would focus on the electrical activity of the atmosphere and surface, and how much plasma was formed or conveyed into the gas planet.

ND states: “How did you come to conclude that EM was the predominate interaction? What does it mean to begin with?”

Without electromagnetic interaction between the Sun and the Earth, it’s likely that Earth would be a “dead” planet with no life and little dynamic processes. Sure, it would still be in orbit, but dead with no life.

Of course, your response is to assume that the electrons come from the planets, and that could be, but shouldn’t science find out one way or another?

I’ll agree, the link is a discussion and thought piece, not a definitive piece of science. But it does suggest it is possible for energy to be coming through the heliopause, which according to Plasma Cosmology theory must be some kind of a ‘double layer':

Langmuir (1881-1957) was the first to use the term ‘Plasma’ in 1927, borrowing it from Blood Plasma to describe the almost life-like and self-organising behaviours of a plasma when in the presence of electrical currents and magnetic fields.

He discovered Plasma Sheathes, now called Double Layers, having observed the electrons and ions of a plasma separating during experimentation. DLs are one of the most important features of plasma behaviour.”

He also defined and explained the term ‘valence’ as part of his description of the atom. Few textbooks, however, recognise the influence that Langmuir had on the development of our understanding of the nature of the atom.

[Langmuir] became the first ‘non-academic’ chemist to receive the Nobel Prize, an accomplishment he realised in 1932.”

I put this history before you because you may not realize that plasma physics has over a century of work under it’s belt.

“Kristian Birkeland (1867-1917), Norway

Birkeland was amongst the first to speculate that the Northern Lights were charged particles ejected from the Sun, captured by the Earth’s magnetic field, and directed towards the polar atmosphere. To prove this theory, Birkeland performed his famous ‘Terella’ experiment, where he artificially created the aurora in the laboratory. His theories were initially laughed at, and it is only now in the space age that measurements from satellites are proving Birkeland correct.

Significantly, his approach to science was broad, comprising observation and laboratory experimentation in addition to mathematical modelling. He was not content with a merely theoretical approach, despite having trained as a mathematician.”

Birkeland’s terrela experiments are important. Not only did they correctly predict the auroras, but they firmly rooted plasma physics in the empirical, experimental method, even in terms of space phenomenon.

Yes, there are neutral bodies of hydrogen, but remember 99% of the Universe is charge seperated plasma. Also, even if only one percent is charge seperated that tends to effect the whole body of matter.

Basically, DrFlimmer, it’s up to you. I’ve provided the information, now it’s up to you.

The key to ‘double layers’ is that electrons and positive ions attract at long-distance, but repel at short-distance. This characteristic of charge seperated particles is most important to understanding why charged particles simply don’t “neutralize” each other. Yes, they can neutralize each other particularly when the ‘double layer’ shorts out or is ‘pinched’ as when a Birkeland current z-pinches in space and compresses matter together.

But what is remarkable is this duality of charged particles: Attraction at long-distance and repulsion at short-distance.

ND states: “How did you come to conclude that EM was the predominate interaction? What does it mean to begin with?”

Without electromagnetic interaction between the Sun and the Earth, it’s likely that Earth would be a “dead” planet with no life and little dynamic processes. Sure, it would still be in orbit, but dead with no life.

You’re making a supposition without answering his question. Just to point out.

Todd W. states: “You have admitted that gravity keeps the moon in orbit around Earth.”

Yes, but the question is what has shaped the planets? Gravity holds the planets in place at the present time, yet in a rather static and passive fashion, certainly not in any kind of dynamic way. Electromagnetism is the force responsible for shaping the planets, and, indeed, causing them to form in the first place.

Proof that the planets were formed through EM, please.

Todd W. states: “That seems to indicate that, at least in space close to Earth, gravity is stronger than EM.”

If gravity is stronger than EM in space closer to Earth, how come no matter how high a building, electricity in wires will always go to the top against the force of gravity?

And yet, a large electromagnet, with the same power as the electric current in your example, when placed at the top of a high building will not be able to pick up even a low-mass object on the ground. I have not studied conductivity in depth, though, so I cannot answer how a current can travel up a wire.

Yes, you were right, the center of the Sun’s orbit is the center of the galaxy. And, yes, this is fundamentally due to electromagnetic energies. The Sun is made-up of plasma, therefore, the force of electromgnetism, 10^39 power greater than gravity is what holds the Sun in it’s obit around the galaxy.

Okay, so you are saying that at a distance of the Sun to the center of the galaxy, EM is operating to keep Sol in orbit. With such a strong current, that should be able to measured. So, please point me to the study that has measured this current.

Of course, at a distance the immensity of the Earth is going to overwhelm a small magnet. The testimony to EM’s strength is that it has any effect at all against the immensity of the Earth and its resultant gravity — yet, it does.

If I understand magnets correctly, the decay of field strength over distance can and has been calculated, and it drops off precipitously. What size magnet would be required to pick something off of Earth’s surface, outpowering gravity, regardless of distance? Please provide a study that demonstrates such. My examples show that over very short distances, EM is more powerful than gravity, but that over greater distances, gravity overpowers EM.

The scale you wish to ignore between a planet and a small magnet with a relatively weak magnetic field is stunning.

As I understand it, though, the Earth’s magnetic field is quite a bit stronger than a tiny magnet. Yet the magnet can outpower the Earth’s field. Paradoxical, no?

Todd W. states: “[H]ow do you differentiate between gravity keeping things together vs. EM, at distances greater than those of a star system?”

Gravity is passive and static, it doesn’t convey energy over great distances. Electromagnetism does convey energy over great distances. Here on Earth over great power lines and in intersteller and intergalactic space as well.

You did not answer my question. What is the process by which you differentiate gravity keeping things together vs. EM? Provide concrete examples of how this is done.

Not all objects are magnetized. In fact, most objects on Earth are not magntized. Now, if the penny was melted and ionized into plasma with free electrons and positve ions, it most definitely would be attracted.

Okay. So, suppose the lightning hits a magnet instead. Are you contending, then, that it would fly rapidly toward the source of the lightning? The magnet is, by definition, magnetized. Does it, too, need to be melted and ionized into plasma? That suggests that EM only works on plasmas.

The energy in the atmosphere has much more to do with electromgnetism than radiant heat energy. Most likely that is true for the Earth as well.

Please provide studies that support these claims.

What it tells me, and it should others, as well, is how threatened you guys are by somebody who has an understanding of Plasma Cosmology theory and insight into the contradictions and weaknesses of “big bang”, “black hole” theory.

Personally, I couldn’t care less one way or the other which side is right, so no fear or feelings of being threatened on my part. Rather, comparing your arguments and those being made by the others, yours are coming up less convincing.

For current you need charged particles in motion,to align the particles you need a magnetic field, to get a magnetic field you need an electric current.
(seems a little chicken and eggy to me.)
With gravity all you need particles with mass to attract on another, more particles together better.

Todd W. states: “Personally, I couldn’t care less one way or the other which side is right, so no fear or feelings of being threatened on my part. Rather, comparing your arguments and those being made by the others, yours are coming up less convincing.”

Please, that doesn’t persuade anybody.

Todd, you were the forth commenter on this post, being most solicitous of the author and expressing unqualified support of “dark matter.”

Then after I commented that the post’s idea was in contradiction to orginal “black hole” theory, you, Todd, come back with this (partial) comment:

“Put it this way, we know that hitting a skin pulled taught over a frame creates a particular sound. For a long time, only through the process of creating a frame, followed by stretching and fastening the skin, followed by striking it with a stick could we get that sound.”

I responded: “Why is it not ad hoc? Ad hoc, in this instance, means coming up with an addendum to a theory because the theory failed to predict or match observation and measurement.”

I asked you a direct question.

You never responded.

So please don’t try and pass off your malarkey: “”Personally, I couldn’t care less one way or the other which side is right…”

Just so the readers and I know where you stand…

One thing your questions assume it that it is one or the other. Gravity has a force, and that force doesn’t go away, it is simply that electromagnetism has a stronger force. Gravity is the ash that remains after electromagnetism subsides.

Certainly, both have respective roles.

Todd W. states: “You’re making a supposition without answering his question. Just to point out.”

Why is my answer a supposition?

Just because you don’t agree with my answer doesn’t make it a supposition.

Todd W states: “Proof that the planets were formed through EM, please.”

Please provide Proof that the planets were formed through gravity.”

My point is simple, at this point in this discussion, as drawn out as it is, I’m not going to document the whole case.

Todd W. states: “And yet, a large electromagnet, with the same power as the electric current in your example…”

Todd, I’ll just repeat my answer I already gave: The electric current that runs to the top of the building is pitifully small compared to the entire gravity of the Earth.

Todd W. states: “With such a strong current, that should be able to measured. So, please point me to the study that has measured this current.”

As I stated repeatedly to DrFlimmer, you can’t detect electrons flowing in a current directly, but the radiation and magnetic fields they emit can be detected and, yes, there is a lot out there. The supercomputer, three dimentional, simulation of galaxy formation does a good job.

I don’t know if conventional science has tried to measure this and they have the controls of the satellites at this point.

Todd W. states: “EM is more powerful than gravity, but that over greater distances, gravity overpowers EM.”

This statement demonstrates your fundamental misunderstanding of electromagnetic forces. Magnets and their attractive power is not the sum total of electromagnetic dynamics. Actually, the major feature is the attraction and repulsion between electrons and positive ions.

Obviously, neutral bodies don’t respond to this attraction and repulsion, but since 99% of mattter is plasma which does, that means this force plays a predominant force in the Universe.

Todd W. states: “As I understand it, though, the Earth’s magnetic field is quite a bit stronger than a tiny magnet. Yet the magnet can outpower the Earth’s field. Paradoxical, no?”

No, not at all. The Earth’s magnetic field is spread out over a large area, whereas, the magnet applies its force to a small specific area.

Besides, you are restating your confusion about magnets and electromagnetic dynamics. Magnetic attraction is only one element of electrodynamics.

Todd W. states: “What is the process by which you differentiate gravity keeping things together vs. EM? Provide concrete examples of how this is done.”

“What is the process…”

Can you please explain?

Electromagnetism forces act on plasma because of the charge seperation. So electromagnetic forces provide attraction and repulsion when interacting with charged particles. Gravity has sway when there are neutral bodies that don’t respond to electromgnetism because there is a minimal of charged particles.

Todd, you keep going back to the magnet example, but that is only “half-a-loaf”.

Again, this is the dying ember of a discussion. I’m not going to run down all the scientific evidence that supports my position.

But dust devils have electric charge in them. Ligtning obviously has electric charge in them, and there is evidence tornados are manifestations of electrical dynamics.

Todd W. I appreciate your questions, but at this point it’s time to move on to the next post…down the trail…

If gravity is stronger than EM in space closer to Earth, how come no matter how high a building, electricity in wires will always go to the top against the force of gravity?

Todd W.:

And yet, a large electromagnet, with the same power as the electric current in your example, when placed at the top of a high building will not be able to pick up even a low-mass object on the ground. I have not studied conductivity in depth, though, so I cannot answer how a current can travel up a wire.

I’ll answer that with a question: How does water travel up a pipe to the top of a building?

Todd, you were the forth commenter on this post, being most solicitous of the author and expressing unqualified support of “dark matter.”

Does it impact me personally whether you’re right or the others in the thread are right? Nope. My life still goes on as before. I have absolutely no vested interest, and thus, I do not feel threatened. I’m not going to lose anything if one is wrong and the other right. As I said, thus far, the arguments from your interlocutors has been more convincing.

Talk about convoluted analogy.

Man, I really need to just stop using analogies to try to explain a point. People seem to have trouble with analogies (probably why it’s typically one of the lowest-scoring sections on the SAT and similar tests). In discussing black hole formation, for a long time, all we had was information on one way that black holes form. Now, we have discovered new data that suggests an additional mechanism by which a black hole may be formed.

I responded: “Why is it not ad hoc? Ad hoc, in this instance, means coming up with an addendum to a theory because the theory failed to predict or match observation and measurement.”

I asked you a direct question.

You never responded.

My apologies for spending some time away from the computer and your question getting lost in the press of posts subsequent to that. Your implication, as I read it, was that you were defining ad hoc as “often improvised or impromptu”. In other words, just something pulled out of thin air to try to do a patch job. That’s been your attitude. However, defining it as an addendum to the theory, then yes, I would agree that it is ad hoc. In other words, an additional hypothesis that will required testing. Like I said.

Why is my answer a supposition?

Your answer is a supposition because you are assuming things. Let me requote your response.

ND states: “How did you come to conclude that EM was the predominate interaction? What does it mean to begin with?”

Without electromagnetic interaction between the Sun and the Earth, it’s likely that Earth would be a “dead” planet with no life and little dynamic processes. Sure, it would still be in orbit, but dead with no life.

You are making the assumption that without EM interaction between Sol and Earth, Earth would probably have no life. Present evidence for that if you want it to be read as more than an assumption. It may well be true, but it might be wrong as well. And it does not answer his question: How (in what way) did you come to conclude that EM was the predominant interaction? So, your answer suggests that because there is life on the planet, EM must be predominant. That’s just like creationists saying, there is complex life, therefore there must be an intelligent designer.

Please provide Proof that the planets were formed through gravity.

You made the claim, the onus is on you to provide proof. I made no claims that gravity formed the planets.

Whether or not that is so is irrelevant to the overall question at hand (i.e., whether EM dominates gravity overall), first of all. Second, I made no claims that gravity explains the planets’ rotations.

The electric current that runs to the top of the building is pitifully small compared to the entire gravity of the Earth.

See, now, I thought you were trying to say that because EM is more powerful than gravity, that was what allowed the electricity to run up to the top of the building. Now it seems like you’re saying that EM is weaker? So, the electricity only has enough power to get itself up to the top? If that is the case, then if my hypothetical electromagnet at the same power as that electricity is not powerful enough to pick something up off the ground at that height, how much more powerful would it need to be to lift a small, light-weight item off the ground?

but the radiation and magnetic fields they emit can be detected and, yes, there is a lot out there. The supercomputer, three dimentional, simulation of galaxy formation does a good job.

I don’t know if conventional science has tried to measure this and they have the controls of the satellites at this point.

So the current cannot be directly measured, but the radiation and EM fields can be. The distinction isn’t really important to my question, but, whatever. You have simulations that say they’re there, but no direct measurements. And the conspiracy part of your post: conventional scientists have control (implication: they’re keeping the truth suppressed). You don’t know if they have tried to measure it yet. So, other than the simulations, how do you know that these currents are out there? If you don’t know whether they’ve been measured or observed, you cannot say that they are definitely there.

Magnets and their attractive power is not the sum total of electromagnetic dynamics.

True. I never said that magnets were the be-all-end-all of EM dynamics. But, it is one of the simplest aspects. That’s why I’m focusing on it.

Electromagnetism forces act on plasma because of the charge seperation. So electromagnetic forces provide attraction and repulsion when interacting with charged particles. Gravity has sway when there are neutral bodies that don’t respond to electromgnetism because there is a minimal of charged particles.

Okay, so EM can act on charged particles, but not on neutral stuff? Just asking to clarify what you are trying to say and make sure I have it right. If a body is, overall, neutral, then, EM doesn’t affect the body as a whole, though it may affect parts of the body that are charged. E.g., EM won’t affect the Earth as a whole, but it can affect parts of the Earth’s atmosphere. Where Earth as a whole is concerned, then, gravity is the dominant force. But with the Sun, you say that overall, the Sun (and other stars) is a charged body, allowing EM to be the dominant force and gravity to take a secondary role? What is your evidence that the Sun’s body as a whole is charged, as opposed to just parts of it?

Anaconda, you may take my questioning and examples and such as “being threatened” that the gravity model of the universe is wrong. But again, I’m not. My questions arise because your posts, to me, don’t make as much sense as those of the others.

@IVAN3MAN

I’ll answer that with a question: How does water travel up a pipe to the top of a building?

Because pressure is stronger than gravity? Osmosis? Because that’s where water is supposed to be? I knew I should’ve paid more attention in class.

Why are you resorting to name calling, insults and swearing? As I stated before, they have no place here. There is no need to write in anger simply because someone disagrees with you or because they ask questions to which you don’t have the answer.

All life has some electrical processes, therefore, no electrical currents no life. Pretty straight forward deduction.

It was said that all life needs chemical interactions, but on closer inspection all life depends not just on chemical reactions, but electrical processes.

I did not question whether life required electrical processes. I asked you to provide evidence to support your claim that for life to develop on Earth, an EM interaction between the Sun and Earth was necessary. Simply because there is electrical interaction between cells in a living organism is not proof of EM interaction between the Sun and Earth.

But the gravitational model does.

Am I saying that the gravitational model is absolutely correct? Thus far the conversation has suggested it is, but I am open to other ideas. It still stands that you made the claim that EM force is responsible for planet formation. You still have not answered my request for evidence supporting this contention.

Electricity is required for life, no electricity therefore no life. No creationism at all.

Electricity occurs between individual cells in the organism. Again, simply because the cells interact in such a way is not proof that an electrical current from the Sun is necessary. To make that kind of jump, you must show that 1) there is a current, 2) that that current somehow directly charges the cells/molecules, as opposed to some other process and 3) that no other process could lead to the electrical interaction between the cells. You’re skipping all those steps in between.

You came late to the party and the host wants to go to bed.

No one is forcing you to continue the thread. You can leave whenever you wish.

“Of course, your response is to assume that the electrons come from the planets, and that could be, but shouldn’t science find out one way or another?”

No, I assumed that the electrons are back-scattered by magnetic fields, because electrons are influenced easily by magnetic fields (much easier than ions/protons).
And the electrons in the solar wind are definitely from the sun, just like the ions/protons. There is no doubt about that, since our telescopes are at different places than the planets. A passing plant would influence the measurement, but it does not. Everywhere we look the solar wind is rather uniform (unless there is a CME or something like that, of course). And again: the uniform movement of the solar wind clearly proofs that the sun cannot be charged, because otherwise the particles MUST have different velocities, but they don’t!
And it is strange. It seems that you are not listening to whatever we say or write. You always claim that the sun is powered by interstellar Birkeland currents. But the flux should be really intense. As I said, it is not detected. The incoming flux is FAR too weak to be able to power the sun. And you will definitely not claim that the currents are fluctuating and we just missed them.

“But what is remarkable is this duality of charged particles: Attraction at long-distance and repulsion at short-distance.”

That would contradict everything we know about electrodynamics. Particles with opposite charge attract and charges with the same charge repel each other. That does not depend on the distance.

Birkeland currents! Oh, wait, no. Let’s see… brain’s a bit fuzzy. I almost had the answer, then an apple fell on my head. So, I went inside, and then a book I was trying to get off a tall shelf fell and hit my head. Then I went to lie down for a bit, snagged my foot on the rug and fell, banging my head. Perhaps FSM is trying to tell me something…

And it is strange. It seems that you [Anaconda] are not listening to whatever we say or write.

Because he’s a crank — see my “Common Characteristics of Cranks” posting above.

The term “crank” (or “krank”) was once the favoured term for spectators at sporting events, a term later supplanted by “fans”. By implication, the “cranks in the bleaching boards” think they know more about the sport than do its participants.

Todd W., er… it rhymes with thump, which, incidentally, is what Anaconda is asking for!

It’s a merry-go-round. He throws out articles left and right without fully understanding the science behind them. Comes to conclusion through oversimplified ideas about astronomy, gravity and plasma physics. And once enough time has passed, he’ll come back to the same generalized points.

“Also, Todd W. states: “If gravity is what keeps Earth in orbit around the sun, then what keeps the Sun in orbit around its center of orbit.” Yes, you were right, the center of the Sun’s orbit is the center of the galaxy. And, yes, this is fundamentally due to electromagnetic energies. The Sun is made-up of plasma, therefore, the force of electromgnetism, 10^39 power greater than gravity is what holds the Sun in it’s obit around the galaxy.

“Again, Todd W. states: “So, at least in terms of our solar system, gravity is a much stronger force than EM.”

Definitions are important. EM is always stronger than gravity on a one-to-one basis. But, in our solar system which is relatively neutral, the presence of electromagneticism is quite small compared to gravity.

Todd W. states: “If I move the magnet a bit further away, I can no longer pick up the object, showing that at that distance, gravity has become stronger than EM.”

Your above quote is similar to your prior statement above: How massive is the Earth in relation to the small magnet? Of course, at a distance the immensity of the Earth is going to overwhelm a small magnet. The testimony to EM’s strength is that it has any effect at all against the immensity of the Earth and its resultant gravity — yet, it does.”

This is his science. He doesn’t really have any qualitative way of comparing gravity and EM. No matter what you say about detecting birkeland currents w/ respect to sun and the rest of the galaxy, he’s going to come back to it. He’s going to keep repeating it. It’s a marry-go-round. It’s an ego-trip for him.

More than once he said something that sounds almost religion:

“It’s a crucial point and one that you must be thoroughly convinced of either way, because onnce you understand the concepts of electromagnetism and plasma physics, and accept electromagntism happens in space, your whole perspecitve changes.”

If I may make Anaconda-style rephrasing: “Once you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you will be saved.”

IVAN3MAN,

I think another symptom of a crank is throwing out quotes from scientists as if they carry scientific weight. I’ve seen sites that have a huge collection of quotes for the sole purpose of putting weight behind their off-beat ideas.

It’s interesting to see what happens when chickens are cackling among themselves.

@ ND:

Your hypocrisy knows no bounds:

ND stated: “You also mentioned Monsignor Georges LeMaître and the Pope. The Pope’s opinions and beliefs have nothing to do with science and astronomy in this case. I think you’re trying to poison the well by insinuating religious overtones.”

This was in response to my [Anaconda’s] statement: “The miraculous creation story of the Big Bang originated from the Belgian Roman Catholic priest and scientist Monsignor Georges LeMaître…”

To which I [Anaconda] responded: “Yes, I did. If you think that a man’s personal life experiences and, indeed, his most personal beliefs don’t have an impact on his opinions, world view, and even work, you don’t have a strong grasp of human nature.”

But that wasn’t enough, ND, your sense of propriety was still offended:

As ND states: “As for the religious implications, that’s a cheap game you’re playing.”

Again, ND’s sense of propriety was deeply offended…

But then in response to my [Anaconda’s] quote:

“It’s a crucial point and one that you must be thoroughly convinced of either way, because onnce you understand the concepts of electromagnetism and plasma physics, and accept electromagntism happens in space, your whole perspecitve changes.”

ND states: “More than once he said something that sounds almost religion…If I may make Anaconda-style rephrasing: “Once you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you will be saved.”

ND, what a big fat stinking hypocrit you are. Talk about trying to poison the well.

And what a stretch to boot. Obviously, this discussion has been about whether electric currents exist in space.

But after much rangling you, ND, recognized Maxwell’s Equations, and other proofs that demonstrate the physical law: Electric currents cause magnetic fields. Therefore, if magnetic fields exist in space, then electric currents also exist in space by definition of physical law.

And after arguing for most of this comment thread, Drflimmer stated:

“I apologize. My rejection of any current in space is, of course, wrong. Tom Marking gave the van-Allen-belt (in the “Black-Hole-Wind” thread) and that is definitely a current “in space”. I should have known better.”

Apology accepted.

Then there is that tower of clarity, Ivan3Man: “I neither acknowledged nor denied electrical currents in space.”

Why the dodge, Ivan3Man?

The reasons are obvious enough: The conventional astronomy ‘community’ is divided between those that don’t want to give an inch to the hated Plasma Cosmology which has been emphatically stating for a century that electric current exists in space, and those that realize that you can’t credibly deny the existence of electric currents in space with the fact that magnetic fields exist all over space. As stated above magnetic fields are a product of electric currents.

Unless you want to go a “new science” route, but most in conventional astronomy know that’s a “bridge too far”. Even hacks like you aren’t prepared to go out on that limb.

And, again, ND, you are a hypocrit and evidently not averse to twisting somebody elses words.

Oh, by the way, Ivan3Man, why should I bother answering your questions when you don’t even have the intellectual integrity to answer a straight forward question: Do electric currents exist in space?

I could ask the same of all of you, other than DrFlimmer, who at least had the gumption to admit his mistake.

Then there is Todd W. who brings us convoluted analogies and tries to pass himself off as some uninterested observer. Another cock-and-bull story.

For the record: Todd W., do electric currents exist in space?

You guys are a bunch of hacks dressed up as clowns.

Although, I tend to have some sympathy for DrFlimmer, but he obviously doesn’t know what he is talking about — we never hear about what his plasma physics instructor said.

Apparently, the existence of double layers was acknowledged, after all, Irving Langmuir was the 1932 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry for that discovery.

DrFlimmer takes me to task for this [Anaconda’s] statement: ““But what is remarkable is this duality of charged particles: Attraction at long-distance and repulsion at short-distance.”

DrFlimmer states: “That would contradict everything we know about electrodynamics. Particles with opposite charge attract and charges with the same charge repel each other. That does not depend on the distance.”

Recombination doesn’t happen willy, nilly, there has to be some energy added. Although, hydrogen will recombine easiest of all because neutral hydrogen only has one electron. The repulsion happens because of the other electrons in orbit around positive ions.

DrFlimmer, this is another recognized scientific principle in laboratory plasma physics that has been tested and confirmed.

DrFlimmer, haven’t you proved enough you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to electrodynamics, remember you admitted you didn’t take the class seriously.

Now, of course, he is sooo convinced he is right that he has decreed that science need not bother to even look for evidence of electrons “backstreaming” toward the Sun from the surrounding space.

So I guess DrFlimmer is convinced science doesn’t make mistakes or just as bad, shouldn’t bother investigating a hypothesis related to the dynamics of the Sun.

Again, I give DrFlimmer a break because he wants to get into atrophysical graduate school and as I’ve already seen, questioning the accepted wisdom is hazardous to your chances of admission (talk about open-minded).

DrFlimmer is like a weather vane on the reality of electric currents between the Sun and the Earth. Oh, Yes, those are electric discharges between Io and Jupiter. Of course, conventional astronomy was only brought to that conclusion kicking and screaming after the evidence was irrrefutable.

But it was PREDICTED by Plasma Cosmology…

DrFlimmer, can you show authority for your contention that charge seperation requires different velocities. I’m sorry, but you’ve made so many wrong assertions, here, on this comment thread that I can’t take your word for it.

As for the rest of you, jokers. Your last little displays are telling. Anybody, who reads this comment thread or more realistically the last portion knows where you guys are coming from, even folks that are inclined to be sympathetic with your point of view.

Your evident desperation to knock down my comments says it all about your attitudes and the state of astronomy, today.

But keep going, keep flapping your gums because your performance couldn’t stand the light of day on stage in an open forum.

I see you have resorted to insults and rudeness, rather than responding to any of my comments for you; you appear to have not read my last post to you. If you keep up that attitude, you may very well find yourself banned for being in violation of Phil’s commenting policy. What, pray tell, in my comments has warranted such a response from you? Why the sudden lack of civility?

For the record: Todd W., do electric currents exist in space?

Personally, I don’t know. I haven’t studied the subject (I think I’ve made that clear in my posts), but, based on the general discussions here, and in Dr. Plait’s other posts, I would say that there probably are. The primary question, however, is whether they are as important or potent as you suggest they are, if they do exist. That’s partly what I’m trying to find out through my questions to you.

And yet again, believe whatever you want about how vested an interest I have in this debate. I do find the discussion interesting, but the fact remains that the outcome really matters very little to me. I’m not a scientist. My worldview is not going to be shaken. My life will go on pretty much as it has up to this point. It seems that you are the one who feels threatened, else why throw insults around instead of addressing the questions posed to you? Why try to put words in others’ mouths?

As for IVAN3MAN and ND, they can get pretty blunt, but rather than respond to their button-pressing with rancor and solely attacking the tone and character of their posts, stay calm and address the questions they pose to you. Emotional responses only serve to cast a shadow on your own comments.

I’m sorry, I just didn’t have the time because the examination period has just started and I have to study. Excuse me that I take that to be a little bit more important than this discussion.

“Recombination doesn’t happen willy, nilly, there has to be some energy added. Although, hydrogen will recombine easiest of all because neutral hydrogen only has one electron. The repulsion happens because of the other electrons in orbit around positive ions.”
“DrFlimmer, haven’t you proved enough you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to electrodynamics, remember you admitted you didn’t take the class seriously.”

So. You give the electron an extra kick to recombine with the proton and then must get rid of that energy again by radiation?
I admitted that I didn’t take too much care about the plasma course. I had electrodynamics twice, just like quantum mechanics (both experimental and theoretical).
And what I learned in those courses is that electrons and protons always attract each other (btw: this is just Coulomb’s law). And the electron will only stay away from the proton if the temperature is too high. Otherwise it will easily recombine (it really wants it!). Not only due to the attraction but also because every physical system tries to go into the lowest possible state. And an atom is a lower state than a separated proton and electron. That is the reason that we don’t have plasmas on earth. It is just too cold.
Btw: The electrons in an ion just shield the field of the ion. As an example: If the nuclei consist of 6 protons and we have 5 electrons in the shell than the resulting field is similar to a field made of one proton – an external electron will feel an attraction, not a repulsion.

“Now, of course, he is sooo convinced he is right that he has decreed that science need not bother to even look for evidence of electrons “backstreaming” toward the Sun from the surrounding space.”

I gave you a reason for that statement. Electrons are easily influenced by magnetic fields. Since you know so much about plasmas I think you should know that little fact, too. So any electron that is coming from the outside should come into real trouble when it faces the heliopause. And do you know what supports this idea? The incoming flux of protons and ions that we call the cosmic radiation. There are no electrons in the cosmic radiation. Why not? Because they have been taken away by magnetic fields someplace else!

“So I guess DrFlimmer is convinced science doesn’t make mistakes or just as bad, shouldn’t bother investigating a hypothesis related to the dynamics of the Sun.”

That is not true! Provide a better theory that explains better all the phenomena we can see and it will be accepted. The first problem with the theory you gave us here is the assumptions of the “Birkeland currents” powering the sun. Even if external electrons were coming in, their flux is FAR too weak to account for any reasonable power source. The second problem is the “charged sun”. I have spoken many times about the solar wind and its uniform motion, there is no need to repeat it once more. That means two basic assumptions of your theory have a lack of supporting evidence. The standard theory on the other hand is tested very well with very different tools (Doppler motion of the granules, helio-seismology, neutrinos coming OUT of the sun, the Planck-spectrum, etc). What supporting evidence can you provide other than claims?

“Yes, those are electric discharges between Io and Jupiter. Of course, conventional astronomy was only brought to that conclusion kicking and screaming after the evidence was irrefutable.”

I would call the Jupiter-Io-System a closed circuit, just like every cable. It’s no discharge at all – for that Jupiter and/or Io have to be charged. But neither the sun not any other planet is, why should Jupiter?

“Although, I tend to have some sympathy for DrFlimmer, but he obviously doesn’t know what he is talking about”

Thanks a lot! So, a guy who actually studies physics and admits that he is probably not too firm with one specific topic (just because I didn’t take too much care of a course doesn’t mean that I do not know what we are talking about!) and even apologizes if he was wrong, that guy has no idea about physics. Thanks a lot, again.
The good thing is, now I know why I can talk and talk and talk and talk and it is all for nothing. Since a student like me does not know a damn thing of physics he cannot be taken seriously. That is the reason why all my comments are not considered. My presented evidences or lack of those about claims of Anaconda (the one WHO knows because he has studied the thing on his own) are just not considered, because I am no counterpart for him. I am not taken seriously, why should my statements? Well, I must say, that makes things easy for you, my friend. But I promise you: Next year I will earn my master’s degree and I will definitely try to become a PhD. It must be really easy to get all that since I will get those degrees and do not understand a thing of physics. Why do so few people study physics I wonder since it must be so easy? Anaconda you can do it, too. Just go to a university and you will rush through it like a knife through butter!
Btw: Do you really want me to ask my professor about double layers? Since I am such an idiot I will definitely make errors when I write down his statements.

Finally I should relax again.
Anaconda, you demand an open mind. That is good, I support that. But an open mind must analyze the given evidences. The only point I can give you so far is about the double layers. Most of the other claims are just what I called them: claims. Claims without any supportive evidence. Birkeland currents into the sun are not observed. A charged sun is not observed. Neutrinos coming from outside the sun are not observed. The great currents that hold galaxies together are not observed. There is not much evidence for your claims.
On the other hand: Dark matter is only observed by its influence. That is only very indirect. But the motion of stars in a galaxy is due to gravity. Why can I say that? I already mentioned the not-observed currents. But there is another reason. We do observe large HI-clouds (meaning neutral hydrogen) that DO move around a galaxy just like we expect them to do. And since they are large and neutral (they are observed with their characteristic 21cm-line in the radio band of the spectrum that is due to a hyperfine-structure transition (hopefully this is the correct term). Probably you have heard of this effect.) they are not influenced by magnetic fields. How can they remain in the galaxies?
But since I am not taken seriously even that comments will be thrown away…

I hope now you understand silliness of the religious overtones you implied when you tried to tie the Pope and the religious position of LeMaître to the bang bang. It’s a very silly way of trying to undermine an opposing idea and it does’t work. If my comments makes me a hypocrite, then so be it. I do have to say though, that there is an almost religious zeal in backing of PC. The way you’re pushing PC in this blog feels like you’re evangelizing it. This is how you’re coming across.

——————————–
A while back you said “After all, I believed like you, at one time, in the “big bang” and “black holes”, but after researching both sides of the scientific controversy, I rejected my old outdated beliefs, that were based on old outdated ideas.”

I’m very curious, how long ago was this?

——————————–
“Obviously, this discussion has been about whether electric currents exist in space.”

No. It’s whether EM dominates over gravity almost anywhere we look. And whether you understand this or not.

“But after much rangling you, ND, recognized Maxwell’s Equations, and other proofs that demonstrate the physical law: Electric currents cause magnetic fields. Therefore, if magnetic fields exist in space, then electric currents also exist in space by definition of physical law.”

I never had any issues with Maxwell’s Equations. It is a very well established corner of modern science. However since well established science says that EM is 10^39 is stronger than gravity, then for you the obvious truth has become that anywhere there is plasma, EM will dominate over gravity and must be the driving force behind all phenomenon we observe (such as stars, galaxies and quasars). Any expression of doubt on this obvious truth seems to mean that the doubter either does not understand the basic, well established science or does not believe in them (for example Maxwell’s Equations). This appears to be the situation you have put yourself into when dealing with those you are looking at your assertions critically.

——————————–
Also your initial claim that EM is the predominate interaction between the Earth and the Sun makes no sense, so I’ll ignore that you said it at all. Because… you seemed to have rather arbitrary metrics for determining which is predominant according your quote.

“Without electromagnetic interaction between the Sun and the Earth, it’s likely that Earth would be a “dead” planet with no life and little dynamic processes. Sure, it would still be in orbit, but dead with no life.”

The context of the original post in which you made “predominate” comment made no mention of life.

You also did not satisfactorily answered the question of how the electrical interactions between the sun/earth is the reason we have life on earth.

All life has some electrical processes, therefore, no electrical currents no life. Pretty straight forward deduction.

It was said that all life needs chemical interactions, but on closer inspection all life depends not just on chemical reactions, but electrical processes.”

Tod W was not asking “of the necessity of electricity for life” but rather the electrical connection of earth/sun to life.

——————————–
You also said the following:
“Yes, but the question is what has shaped the planets? Gravity holds the planets in place at the present time, yet in a rather static and passive fashion, certainly not in any kind of dynamic way. Electromagnetism is the force responsible for shaping the planets, and, indeed, causing them to form in the first place.”

What does “static” and “dynamic” mean here? Why are they important? How did EM shape the planets? Please provide evidence/references to this.

2. Fusion. (What do H-bombs and Birkeland currents have to do with each other, other than your assumption fusion happens in the core of the Sun?)

3. Permanent magnets have a magnetic field as a result of arrayed atoms which in turn causes their respective electrons (charged particles) to orbit in a directionally arrayed and oriented motion which induces a magnetic field.

4. An electric generator requires an outside mechanical energy force which spins or rotates a series of magnets around a conductive series of brushings which causes electrons to move. In essence, the arrayed atoms and their directionally oriented electrons in the magnets induces more electrons to move in directionally oriented motion (electric current) which induces a magnetic field.

In summary, it is the properties of the electrons when they move in directionally oriented motion that induces a magnetic field not the reverse.

Although, as additional point of interest (possibly the point you wanted to highlight) a magnetic field once generated by charged particles in directionally oriented motion will induce other charged particles to move in directionally oriented way. In this sense, electric current is a self-reinforcing phenomenon. That is one reason electric current is so dynamic, it gathers other charged particles into the electric flow which increases the size and intensity of the magnetic field.

But the magnetic field is always dependent on charged particle motion, principly electron motion.

If I may engage in an analogy: The free electron is the leading partner in the charged particle dance with the positive ions.

In regards to your second question, Ivan3Man, your question implies the assumption that fusion is at the core of the Sun. This is an assumption. The physical evidence is ambiguous at best for that proposition. The Sun’s surface is at about 6000 K, but the corona is at about 2,000,000 K and Sun spots are dark and indication that it is cooler in the interior, this is inconsistent with the core being the hottest region of the Sun.

If the core has fusion, why would the surface be so dramatically cooler than the corona? The charged particles in the solar wind accelerate in the corona and keep accelerating past the Earth. This is indicative of constant or increasing force being applied to the charged particles in the corona, with constant force being applied even after leaving the corona, which is consitent with electromagnetic processes.

@ ND:

The planets, according to Plasma Cosmology theory are the result of solar discharges caused by electromagnetic forces when the star is most electromagnetically active (likely in its early history). Giant gas planets like Jupiter and Saturn in other star systems are noted to be in close orbit with their star. It is hypothesized that planets are lodged in their orbits or have their orbits altered by electromagnetic forces. Our solar system’s gas planets were pushed out to their current orbits by electromagnetic forces as hypothesized by some proponents of Plasma cosmology theory. I emphasize ‘hypothesis’ because no one really knows for sure.

But if something like the above happened that is why electromagnetism is the predominate force. Gravity stabilizes orbits, after electromagnetism subsides, which is important, but electromagnetism sets the orbits. If that is accurate that would seemingly place electromagnetism ahead of gravity in forming the solar system.

Which could lead some people to conclude that electromagnetism is predominate in the formation of the solar system.

ND, I would say in the last year is when I became convinced that the gravitational model was inadequate to explain the Universe.

I didn’t say, “EM dominates over gravity almost anywhere we look.”

I specifically stated in response to Todd W.’s series of questions that at present gravity controls the planets’ and moons’ orbits. And, early on in this discussion I suggested it would be scientifically fruiful to study and determine the relative roles of electromagnetism and gravity in relation to each other.

Nice try, ND, you twist words at the drop of a hat.

I haven’t argued, “Any expression of doubt,” is intolerable, in fact just the opposite, I have repeatedly invoked “reasonable scepticicm.”

ND, you are projecting your own view that “any expression of doubt” against “big bang, black hole” theory is intolerable. This whole discussion has been about you and your fellow interlocutors attacking Plasma Cosmology because it entertains “doubts” about “black holes” and other “matters”, “energies”, and objects that where hypothesized mostly, although, not entirely, as crutches for the gravitationa model because without them the model was falsified.

It seems you and the others are the ones who can’t abide by that prospect.

Perhaps, the “electricity essential to ‘life’ argument” is not the strongest, perhaps the formation and placement of the planets is a stronger rational for electromagnetism’s importance, but admittedly there is less scientific evidence for that proposition. Certainly, there are evidences of electromagnetic processes on the planets and moons. The electric discharge between Io and Jupiter is one example, there are others that I won’t catalog at present.

Mostly, this discussion has been about the threshold issue of electric currents in space. And some discussion exploring the relative importance of electromagnetism and gravity in regards to the solar system.

Pointing out the religious position of LeMaître is not comparable to substituting wholesale words and meaning from a statement I made about gaining a new perspective once an individual allows for existence of electromagnetic forces in space.

There are many issues to explore regarding electromagnetism’s role in the Cosmos.

It is my opinion based on the scientific evidence that an interested individual can’t gain a full understanding of the Universe without considering the role and effects of electromagnetism.

@ Phil Plait:
I am about to post this twice because it is important for both discussions. If you don’t want it, no problem, just delete one. Thank you.

In order to pass the spam filter I filled in some blanks into the links!

@ Anaconda:
Since I am not a reliable source, I will give you some (btw: I still don’t understand why papers are more reliable than books).
You always said that Cygnus X-1 is not a black hole, but you failed to say what it is instead. Just to say “it is not that” but not to give another explanation is not very scientific – it sounds more like an infant: “I want this lollipop NOW”.
Well, I made a search for papers about Cygnus X-1 and there are quite much. At first I give you a link to a list of about 200 papers (probably there are more), then I will give you some links to papers that sound interesting – I just read their abstracts, but they have some information for you (talking about thermal components of the spectrum and such things…)

htt p://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-basic_connect?qsearch=Cygnus+X-1&version=1
htt p://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000ApJ…543..928M
(btw: if I didn’t make a mistake, kT=86keV is about T=10^9K)
htt p://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ApJ…663..445S
htt p://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1975ApJ…199L.147W
htt p://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006A%26A…446..591C
htt p://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006MNRAS.368.1025L
All the papers I linked to are available for free.

The next one is from Nature, so I guess it is not for free, but the abstract is quite interesting, it is about anti-hydrogen:
htt p://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002Natur.419..456A

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. What about this one:http://ww w.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2008/pr-46-08.html
You still failed to address my question, how a star (“S2”) can orbit the galactic core in less than 13 years on a greater orbit than Pluto’s around the sun?

“ND, you are projecting your own view that “any expression of doubt” against “big bang, black hole” theory is intolerable.”

Enough of this game Anaconda. This has nothing to do with tolerating doubt or expression of opposing ideas to mainstream ideas. It has to do with you being convincing or the scientific merits of PC. If you want to offer a better alternative you have to back it up. That’s all there is to it. You have not been convincing. And frankly you yourself have been projecting from the very start. We have not been “attacking” PC. You came to this forum to start a discussion to promote PC. On top of that you appear to relish kicking sand in the eyes of those you think are the promoters of mainstream astronomy. You don’t appear to understand who we are and what our attitude towards science is.

If you wish to express reasonable skepticism towards today’s mainstream astrophysics, then you have to do it at the same level as the scientists. But you do not have the scientific and mathematical background to do this.

DrFlimmer, a word of advice: If you want URL links in your comments to get passed the spam filter, just drop the “http / www” prefix — most web-browsers will work without them when copied & pasted into the address bar, unless you’re using some weird half-assed job that one has not heard of!

In this sense, electric current is a self-reinforcing phenomenon. That is one reason electric current is so dynamic, it gathers other charged particles into the electric flow which increases the size and intensity of the magnetic field.

This almost sounds like something a proponent of a free-energy device would say.

The planets, according to Plasma Cosmology theory are the result of solar discharges caused by electromagnetic forces when the star is most electromagnetically active (likely in its early history). Giant gas planets like Jupiter and Saturn in other star systems are noted to be in close orbit with their star.

Do you have some evidence to produce that planets are formed from stellar discharges? By what mechanism does the matter expelled from the star form into a planet? At what distance from the star does this happen?

Or are you suggesting that matter circling the star is somehow formed into planets by an EM discharge from the star, rather than by gravitational forces? Where did this matter come from? Describe the mechanism and process by which an EM discharge could form the matter into a planet.

I assume that you have some lab experiments to cite, since you base your conclusions on experimentally observed phenomena, rather than just mathematical models. And please do not feel bad about writing an encyclopedia. Such a statement reads more as a cop-out from actually supporting your claims. We would actually welcome a good, detailed description of what you assert is occurring.

It is hypothesized that planets are lodged in their orbits or have their orbits altered by electromagnetic forces. Our solar system’s gas planets were pushed out to their current orbits by electromagnetic forces as hypothesized by some proponents of Plasma cosmology theory. I emphasize ‘hypothesis’ because no one really knows for sure.

But if something like the above happened that is why electromagnetism is the predominate force. Gravity stabilizes orbits, after electromagnetism subsides, which is important, but electromagnetism sets the orbits. If that is accurate that would seemingly place electromagnetism ahead of gravity in forming the solar system.

You base your claim that EM is the predominant force, rather than gravity, on an hypothesis? But isn’t that what you’ve been criticizing BB/black hole theorists for? Seems a pretty big “if”. You state that gravity stabilizes the orbits once the EM subsides. What happens until it subsides? Do the planets keep getting pushed further and further out? Does the EM make their orbits erratic, and if so, how and why? Do you have some examples of this actually occurring? Observations that show an electromagnetically active star and its planets, and how their orbits change over the duration of the EM activity? How does this compare to star systems in which the star is no longer electromagnetically active?

I have made this belated response to the assertions by “Anaconda” above, for the benefit of third party readers, because it cannot go unanswered. To quote John McEnroe: “You can’t be serious, man! YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!”

Anaconda:

But the scientific fact is this: The only known cause that produces magnetic fields, whether in space or in the laboratory, is electric currents (other causes have been searched for by the best minds in science and never found). You have repeatedly acknowleged [sic] the presence of magnetic fields in space. I’ll repeat, science knows of only one way to create magnetic fields: Electric currents.

FALSE! There are, in fact, two kinds of magnetic sources: (1) motion of electric charges, such as electric currents and (2) the intrinsic magnetism of elementary particles, such as the electron.

In addition to current loops, the electron, among other fundamental particles, is said to have a magnetic dipole moment. This is because it generates a magnetic field which is identical to that generated by a very small current loop. However, to the best of our knowledge, the electron’s magnetic moment is not due to a current loop, but is instead an intrinsic property of quantum-mechanical spin. This property of the electron is exploited in the hard-disk drives of computers and digital video recorders.

Anaconda: Permanent magnets have a magnetic field as a result of arrayed atoms which in turn causes their respective electrons (charged particles) to orbit in a directionally arrayed and oriented motion which induces a magnetic field.

That’s what I used to think, but the full story is more complicated than that. This is an abstract from Wikipedia:

A permanent magnet, one that stays magnetized, are made from ‘hard’ ferromagnetic materials, which has unpaired electrons, i.e., atomic or molecular orbitals with exactly one electron in them. While paired electrons are required by the Pauli exclusion principle to have their intrinsic (‘spin’) magnetic moments pointing in opposite directions, causing their magnetic fields to cancel out, an unpaired electron is free to align its magnetic moment in any direction. When an external magnetic field is applied, these magnetic moments will tend to align themselves in the same direction as the applied field, thus reinforcing it.

However, in addition to the electrons’ intrinsic magnetic moments wanting to be parallel to an applied field, there is also in these materials a tendency for these magnetic moments to want to be parallel to each other. Thus, even when the applied field is removed, the electrons in the material can keep each other continually pointed in the same direction.

The magnetic moment of atoms in a ferromagnetic material cause them to behave something like tiny permanent magnets. They stick together and align themselves into small regions of more or less uniform alignment called magnetic domains or Weiss domains.

Anaconda: An electric generator requires an outside mechanical energy force which spins or rotates a series of magnets around a conductive series of brushings which causes electrons to move. In essence, the arrayed atoms and their directionally oriented electrons in the magnets induces more electrons to move in directionally oriented motion (electric current) which induces a magnetic field.

[…]

Although, as additional point of interest […] a magnetic field once generated by charged particles in directionally oriented motion will induce other charged particles to move in directionally oriented way. In this sense, electric current is a self-reinforcing phenomenon. That is one reason electric current is so dynamic, it gathers other charged particles into the electric flow which increases the size and intensity of the magnetic field.

FALSE! The counter-electromotive force is the voltage, or electromotive force, that pushes against the current which induces it. CEMF is caused by a changing electromagnetic field. It is represented by Lenz’s Law of electromagnetism:

* If the magnetic field associated with this current were in the same direction as the change in magnetic field that created it, these two magnetic fields would combine to give a net magnetic field which would in turn induce a current with twice the magnitude. This process would continue creating infinite current from just moving a magnet; a violation of the law of conservation of energy.

* Take the north pole of a permanent magnet and place a coil in front of it, and put a microscopic camera on top of the magnet. As you bring the magnet closer to the coil, you are increasing the flux through the coil. Then, by Lenz’s law, the current will be in counter-clockwise direction as viewed by the camera.

* If you bring the magnet away from the coil, you are decreasing the flux through the coil. Therefore, the current should be induced in the clockwise direction as viewed from the camera.

* What if you keep the magnet at rest, but increase the field strength of the magnet? In this case, you are increasing the flux through the coil.

Now one must read Lenz’s law carefully:

The current associated to this emf will be such that the flux it creates opposes the change in flux that created it.

Notice that change in flux is emphasized. Increasing the field strength of the magnet just means that the change in flux is towards the coil, so that Lenz’s law tells us that the induced current should be in the counterclockwise direction as viewed from the camera. Note that this case is analogous to the case where we moved the magnet towards the coil.

* Similarly, if we keep the magnet at rest, but decrease the field strength of the magnet, the current will be induced in the clockwise direction as viewed by the camera.

* Another possible situation is increasing the area of the coil. In this case, we are increasing the flux through the coil, so that a current is induced by Faraday’s law. Note that increasing the area of the coil is equivalent to bringing the magnet closer to the coil; both cases effectively increase the magnetic flux through the coil. Therefore, the current will be induced in the counter-clockwise direction as viewed by the camera.

* Decreasing the area of the coil is equivalent to bringing the magnet away from the coil, since both cases effectively decrease the flux through the coil. Therefore, decreasing the area of the coil will induce a current in the clockwise direction.

* Note how we always specified the direction of the induced current with reference to the camera. In general, physics pays a lot of importance to reference frames.

Anaconda: [Y]our question implies the assumption that fusion is at the core of the Sun. This is an assumption. The physical evidence is ambiguous at best for that proposition. [So it’s an ‘Electric Sun'(?). Well, how silly of me to think otherwise(!).] The Sun’s surface is at about 6000 K, but the corona is at about 2,000,000 K [No s***, Sherlock!] and Sun spots are dark and indication that it is cooler in the interior, this is inconsistent with the core being the hottest region of the Sun.

A sunspot is a region on the Sun‘s surface (photosphere) that is marked by intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection, forming areas of reduced surface temperature. They can be visible from Earth without the aid of a telescope. Although they are at temperatures of roughly 4,000–4,500 K, the contrast with the surrounding material at about 5,800 K makes them clearly visible as dark spots, as the intensity of a heated black body (closely approximated by the photosphere) is a function of T (temperature) to the fourth power. If a sunspot were isolated from the surrounding photosphere, it would be brighter than an electric arc.

Anaconda: If the core has fusion, why would the surface be so dramatically cooler than the corona? The charged particles in the solar wind accelerate in the corona and keep accelerating past the Earth. This is indicative of constant or increasing force being applied to the charged particles in the corona, with constant force being applied even after leaving the corona, which is consitent [sic] with electromagnetic processes.

That is known as argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument from ignorance); just because you do not understand something, you automatically conclude that it is false — just like bloody creationists!

E.g., “The solar system must be younger than a million years because, even if the Sun were made of solid coal and oxygen, it would have burned up within that time at the rate it generates heat.” An argument from ignorance, from 19th century encyclopedias, based on the assumption that because there was no means known at that time of producing heat more efficient than coal, this logically put a limit on the Sun’s possible age. In fact, in the 20th century, with the discovery of radioactivity and nuclear fusion, the Sun’s age was more correctly dated at many billions of years old instead. The ‘ignorance’ in this case was assuming that no fuel source could be more efficient than coal and oxygen.

The coronal heating problem in solar physics relates to the question of why the temperature of the Sun’s corona temperature is ~5 × 106 K, while the effective surface (photosphere) temperature is 5778 K. The high temperatures require energy to be carried from the solar interior to the corona by non-thermal processes, because the second law of thermodynamics prevents heat from flowing directly from the solar photosphere to the much hotter corona.

Many coronal heating theories have been proposed, but two theories have remained as the most likely candidates — wave heating and magnetic reconnection (or nanoflares):

Wave heating theory

The wave heating theory proposes that waves carry energy from the solar interior to the solar chromosphere and corona. The Sun is made of plasma rather than ordinary gas, so it supports several types of waves analogous to sound waves in air. The most important types of wave are magneto-acoustic waves and Alfvén waves. Magneto-acoustic waves are sound waves that have been modified by the presence of a magnetic field, and Alfvén waves are similar to ULF radio waves that have been modified by interaction with matter in the plasma. Both types of waves can be launched by the turbulence of granulation and super granulation at the solar photosphere, and both types of waves can carry energy for some distance through the solar atmosphere before turning into shock waves that dissipate their energy as heat.

Magnetic reconnection theory

The Magnetic reconnection theory relies on the solar magnetic field to induce electric currents in the solar corona. The currents then collapse suddenly, releasing energy as heat and wave energy in the corona. This process is called “reconnection” because of the peculiar way that magnetic fields behave in a plasma (or any electrically conductive fluid such as mercury or seawater). In a plasma, magnetic field lines are normally tied to individual pieces of matter, so that the topology of the magnetic field remains the same: if a particular north and south magnetic pole are connected by a single field line, then even if the plasma is stirred or if the magnets are moved around, that field line will continue to connect those particular poles. The connection is maintained by electric currents that are induced in the plasma. Under certain conditions, the electric currents can collapse, allowing the magnetic field to ‘reconnect’ to other magnetic poles and release heat and wave energy in the process. (N.B. Electric currents do occur in space environments, under certain conditions; e.g., within the magnetosphere of the Sun and/or planets.)

An analogy to this is magnetic induction heating that is utilized in induction furnaces and domestic induction cookers.

Magnetic reconnection is hypothesized to be the mechanism behind solar flares, the largest explosions in our solar system. Furthermore, the surface of Sun is covered with millions of small magnetized regions 50–1,000 km across. These small magnetic poles are buffeted and churned by the constant granulation. The magnetic field in the solar corona must undergo nearly constant reconnection to match the motion of this ‘magnetic carpet’, so the energy released by the reconnection is a natural candidate for the coronal heat, perhaps as a series of “microflares” that individually provide very little energy, but together account for the required energy.

That is the reason why you can destroy a permanent magnet with heat. The heat will increase the thermal “motion” of the electrons resulting in magnetic moments pointing anywhere. There won’t be any aligned magnetic moments anymore and the magnetism ceases.

So what we have in this case is quantum theory. I don’t know if Anaconda will accept it since it is even more unimaginable than Relativity. If you want a really good insight into quantum effects I urge you to read Feynman’s “QED” – it is as much informative as it is enjoyable!

That is the reason why you can destroy a permanent magnet with heat. The heat will increase the thermal “motion” of the electrons resulting in magnetic moments pointing anywhere. There won’t be any aligned magnetic moments anymore and the magnetism ceases.

Indeed, and in case anyone is wondering, it is called the Curie point (Tc) or Curie Temperature. (Click on my name for the Wiki article.)

And when you have finished “QED” you should start “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!” unless you have already read it. I was asking myself all the time, while I was reading it, how it is possible that one man experienced all that in ONE life

Oops. I read “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!” first. I have not read QED. I knew I was missing something in my life

As for OIM, I was sooooo tempted to add to the discussion the basics of gravity and but I don’t think I would get anywhere. Specially the way they react to even a mild mannered correction to the facts they’re throwing about on that blog. OIM was pointing to a 1963 manned nasa mission as how it falsifies gravity (as we know it ) and how come the moon has not come crashing down on earth because of gravity. Soooooo tempting. It’s like that xkcd comic “Someone on the internet is wrong.” Even Anaconda has been correcting OIM on certain things, on gravity no less! But I’m now avoiding that site and feeling better for it.

“QED” is about “Quantum ElectroDynamics” (probably Anaconda would love it ), Feynman’s great theory (oh, no, Anaconda wouldn’t love it – it’s about a theory…) – and it’s explained for everyone and I guess everyone with a little interest will understand what he is talking about.

I.e.: He always uses “arrows” to explain the things – only once in a footnote he says that those “arrows” are called imaginary (complex?) numbers.
As far as I recall, there is no equation in the whole book – what is good, because a path-integral would have given nightmares to everyone

@ ND
I think it doesn’t matter which one you read first
And: Thank you a lot!!

I must search for other books of Feynman. I’ve just read those two. Especially his “lectures” are supposed to be extraordinary – I belive that without reading them.

To quote Hans Bethe, theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate:
“There are two types of genius. Ordinary geniuses do great things, but they leave you room to believe that you could do the same if only you worked hard enough. Then there are magicians, and you can have no idea how they do it. Feynman was a magician.”

To paraphrase Scott D. Weitzenhoffer: “Debating [cranks] on the topic of [Plasma Cosmology/Electric Universe] is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon; it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.”

I have already stated this at “The roar of the Centaur” thread, but I will do so here as well for good measure:

Amongst the company of cranks, they do not to care if other cranks (and denialists in general for that matter) have variations on their own crazy ideas, just as long as the other cranks are opposing the same perceived incorrect truth. Cranks are not honest brokers in a debate, they stand outside of it and just shovel male bovine excrement into it to try to sow confusion and doubt about real science. They don’t care if some other crank comes along and challenges the prevailing theory by tossing BS, as long as what they’re shoveling stinks. They are like adolescent punks who vandalize recently built/painted walls with graffiti. Pseudoscience is a form of intellectual vandalism!

I just took a look at Anaconda’s comments on OiM, and to read it, you would think that the entire discussion was simply about whether or not electric currents of any variety exist in space. Forget about the question of whether EM force plays a larger role in the structure of galaxies/universe. Forget about the questions of planet formation, antimatter, ambiplasma, black holes, icy vs. rocky comets, and on and on. Apparently none of that took place.

It is interesting to come back to a debate such as this after a few days time to see how others want to end it, knowing that most readers, rather than reading the whole thread, will only read the last several comments to get a flavor of the debate. Knowing this dynamic, parties to the debate, one side or the other will often carry on well after the debate has ended, so as to get the last word, and hopefully shape the impressions of those readers that didn’t follow the debate as it progressed.

What can we deduce from the “last words” of this debate?

My interlocutors, far from having an open-mind on electromagnetism’s role in the dynamics and structure of the Universe, are determined not to have electromagnetism considered as little as possible.

The interlocutors are determined to protect their “faith” that the “gravity only” paradigm be protected at all costs.

Is that being open-minded to the evidence?

Do these interlocutors during the course and particularly at the end of the debate when they are trying to frame the impressions of the debate, demonstrate a willingness to look at evidence with an open-mind or do the demonstrate the doggedness of those determined to limit consideration as much as possible? In other words, encourage a close-minded approach that doesn’t consider the evidence presented. (Oh sure, they want their evidence considered, but the question is how do they want the other side’s evidence considered?)

I think the answer is obvious, but, of course, each readers gets to decide that question.

Now, to some of the assertions in this last section to give some balance.

Ivan3Man, does present a rather long list of particulars.

Intrinsic magnetism: This is limited to atomic scale relations of the sub-atomic particles. And mostly it is cancelled out beyond the atomic scale because it is masked over by the randomness of the atoms alignments and the electrons’ alignments and “spin” patterns. Ivan3Man’s preferred conclusion is that intrinsic magnetism can be scaled up to galactic scales to account for the ubiquitous magnetism in the Universe.

There is no laboratory scientific evidence that demonstrates intrinsic magnetism scales up to large scale structures in the Universe or plays a role in forming the magnetism that increasingly can’t be denied exists in space.

And demonstrating his blind spot, which he has already amply demonstrated, Ivan3Man, denies that electromagnetism can be scaled up many orders of magnitude, as proven in the plasma physics laboratory, and casts his lot with scaling up intrinsic magnetism, on his own, without any scientific support. Even astrophysicists don’t attempt to make that claim. They don’t make the claim because they know it would make them look foolish because there simply isn’t any evidence to support the idea.

Ivan3Man states: “They [ferreous metals] stick together and align themselves into small regions of more or less uniform alignment called magnetic domains or Weiss domains.”

But think about it. In the chaotic heat induced states of nature that the gravity only model requires to support it’s unseen objects, “black holes, neutron stars” randomness is at a height, indeed, it is this heat and randomness that struggles with gravity in the “gravity only model” that breaks out to cause the thermal expansions which give rise to the large structures of the Universe. So, that tendency to align atoms and electrons that Ivan3Man is counting on to provide for large structure magnetism would be completely wiped out. But Ivan3Man didn’t think that through, rather, any idea that could be thrown up against the wall to contradict the maxim, electric currents cause magnetic fields, had to be tried even to the inherent inconsistency of calling for a scaled up version of an elemental force that has never been scaled up, to oppose an elemental force that has been scaled up in the laboratory and is consistent with observed large scale structures in the Universe.

But that reveals the dogged determination of the dogmatist. Ivan3Man would rather float by implication a totally unsupported idea than allow that electric currents cause magnetic fields, notwithstanding the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that supports that reality.

Who is the dogmatist in this discussion?

In the next section of Ivan3Man’s comment he covers the “generator” question. First, there are AC alternators and DC generators. Second, Ivan3Man spends a lot of time on this question, admittedly a lot of research, and he may well be correct, but that was a side isssue from the larger debate of Plasma Cosmology, so why does he spend so much time and space on it? It could be that Ivan3Man wanted to dispute any and all assertions that I might make — that is perfectly legitimate in one sense, but likely it is done with the intent to try and make readers infer that any and all ideas and factual assertions I made are in error.

The evidence speaks for itself.

But really the purpose of Ivan3Man is not to dispute particluars and acknowledge particulars — the mature form of scientific discussion and cooperation, but to dispute, dispute, dispute, so that readers will reject any and all evidence that supports the concept of electromagnetism role in the dynamics and structure of the Universe.

The reader might come away from all this and a say to himself, “what do these guys have against electromgnetism in space anyhow? After all, it’s one of the ‘Four Fundamental Forces’ in the Universe, it only makes sense that it would have a role in space.”

Sadly, it’s politics and group-think, and the need to protect a theory, the “gravity only model” because science is supposed to be so advanced in the 21st century, and it is in applied material sciences, but in astronomy has crawled out on a branch which should it break (astronomers making a century long error and steadfastly refusing to admit it) will be disrepute to the status quo. So, it’s more about human politics and status quo and prestigue than the basic science questions involved, truly sad, but in keeping with human nature.

The “Sun” question: Notice, in this sections he offers multiple theories, so obviously this process is not well understood. I offer an alternative hypothesis, that has supporting evidence behind it, so it would seem all hypothesis that have evidence to support them sould be investigated. But no, Ivan3Man, sticks his hypothesis out there to suggest that the alternative hypothesis I offer shouldn’t be considered at all.

Again, to make the point. Ivan3Man and the other interlocutors demonstrate the attitude they are more interested in smothering the scientific evidence I offer in the discussion, rather than consider it.

The implied conclusion is they don’t want any side-by-side comparison and alalysis by people of good faith and open-mind of electromagnetim’s role in space — possibly because they don’t think the “gravity only model” will come off better for the comparison.

“Magnetic reconnection” is rejected by electrical engineers because anybody versed in electrical engineering and understand electrical field theory knows “magnetic reconnection” is a school boy howler put out by astronomists to protect the “gravity only modle”. It’s basic flaw is that it denies the necessity of a circuit. It is well known that electric current needs a circuit to flow, but “magnetic reconnection” violates that principle. Of course, it goes back to the another flawed idea of Ivan3Man’s that magnetic fields don’t need electric current to exist.

Astronomers, thinking they engage in the “queen of the sciences” can engage in making up the laws of nature and breaking the laws of naure as they go along to suit the protection and support of the “gravity only model”.

Sorry, you don’t get to do that.

For those not bound up in the status quo and are open to the evidence, I say,”consider the evidence.”

Ah, welcome back to the discussion. Do you think you will have time to answer my questions over on the “Roar of the Centaur” thread?

And again, a request. When posting, please stick to facts and leave the philosophy, character questions and other inane chatter to a minim. Brevity would help clarify what exactly you’re trying to say and result in people being more willing to read your posts.

Hopefully you will read this. I am about to deal with the sun again, which you suppose is powered by electric currents. I’ve made some calculations.

So, first of all: The sun has a luminosity of L=3,846*10^26 J/s. Since the sun is fairly stable (I think, you agree on this), the same amount of energy must “enter” the sun somehow. “Mainstream” science says that this energy is created in the core by fusion. You say it is provided by currents entering the sun from the outside.

A current is charge per unit time, or in a formula: I=Q/t, where I is the current, Q the charge and t is the time, which we consider to be 1 second, because the luminosity is the energy leaving the sun in one second and we want to get the current that is needed to provide this energy.

So, what we need is the charge that enters the sun in one second.

One knows that the energy of a current is charge times voltage (or the potential drop between the sun and the surrounding medium where the electrons are supposed to come from), or again as a formula: W=Q*U.

We want the charge, so this reads: Q=W/U.

W=3,846*10^26 J. What we need is the voltage. Here I refer to a statement that you made some time ago:

“The Sun is at a more positive electrical potential (voltage) than is the space plasma surrounding it – probably in the order of 10 billion volts.”

That means U=10^10 V. We get the result:
Q=3,846*10^16 C.

How many electrons are needed for such a charge? That’s an easy task. Just divide the charge by the unit charge:
N=3,846*10^16 / 1,6*10^-19 = 2,4*10^35.

That is not a small number. Finally the current we get:
I=Q/t= 3,846*10^16 A.

I suppose that this is a big number, too.

The question is how can one detect these electrons? One can measure the flux of electrons, of course. Probably this is the only chance, because the electrons do not need a magnetic field to guide them. And why not?

Well, we have a potential drop. This results in an electric field that accelerates the electrons. The electrons will move along the electric field lines and will enter the sun that way. Magnetic fields are not necessary to channel the electrons. But since the electric field accelerates the electrons we can calculate the energy and the speed an electron will have when it enters the sun.

The kinetic energy an electron can gain in an electrostatic field is: T=e*U=1,6*10^-9 J.
That is a huge number as we will see in a minute.

The mass-energy of an electron (the energy an electron has at rest) is E0=m(el)*c^2=9,1*10^-31 * (3*10^8)^2 J=8,19*10^-14 J.

The kinetic energy is much higher than the mass-energy. That means the electron is highly relativistic. We can calculate the ratio b=v/c, b=1 means the electron would move with a speed equaling light-speed c.

b=sqrt(2*E0*T+T^2)/(E0+T)=0,999999998
That is really close to the speed of light.

If the electrons would be guided by a magnetic field, I think the magnetic field has to be very strong.

The distance between the interstellar medium and the sun is about d=100 AU=1,5*10^13 m. In the rest of frame of the electrons this distance contracts to about:
d’=sqrt(1-b^2)*d=7,7*10^8m.

That is a contraction of about five orders of magnitude! Since the electrons are moving just a little bit under the speed of light with c=3*10^8 m/s, it takes the electrons just 2,5 seconds to reach the sun (yes, the acceleration will result in a longer time, but this is only a rough estimate and we get a feeling for the magnitude). The magnetic field just doesn’t have the time to interact with the electrons unless it is very strong.

But let’s assume that the electrons are guided by a magnetic field of the strength B.
Ivan3man gave us a link where we can find how to calculate the synchrotron power of the electrons. I put the link in my name.

The power for one electron is:
P(el)=2/3 * e^4/c^3/m(el)^2 * b^2/(1-b^2) * B^2

Inserting our previous results and the numbers of the constants we get:
P(el)=3,247*10^-33 * B^2 W.

To get the total power we must multiply this with the number of electrons we have also calculated before:
P=N*P(el)=779,27*B^2 W.

This is the energy in ONE second we would detect if the electrons are guided by a magnetic field. I do not have a reasonable number for the strength of the magnetic field, but as discussed before I would consider it to be fairly strong. To give a comparison: The protons in the LHC will be accelerated rather close to the speed of light. To bend them around the tunnel one needs a magnetic field of about 5T, that is rather much since the earth’s magnetic field is of order 10^-6 T on the surface of the earth.

Conclusion:
The fluxes, currents and energies are rather high. Since we do not measure anything of that sort (we are detecting high energetic protons and ions but in very few numbers in that energy-range) I think it is quite reasonable to conclude that the sun is not powered by an external current of electrons (regardless the fact the sun is not on a potential because the solar wind (electrons and protons/ions) moves very uniformly).

That is all very well, Dr Flimmer, but the onus is on the claimant (Anaconda) to prove the “Electric Sun” hypothesis, not for you to disprove it.

Furthermore, of the four fundamental interactions or forces, Strong Nuclear force is the most powerful at 1038, which is 100 greater than Electromagnetic force at 1036. Therefore, Strong Nuclear force is the source of energy that powers the stars, such as the Sun. It’s for Anaconda and his cohorts to prove otherwise.

Yes, indeed. But I had nothing to do yesterday, and just wanted to show him that a brief calculation reveals the flaws in his arguments. The problem is that Anaconda will reject the calculation, because he is not able to (maybe doesn’t want to) understand it!

Anaconda gave us some “sources” (regardless of Nasa and Wiki). I wonder if on that internetpages will ever be an equation or a calculation – what I have seen so far is just written text.
But the language of science is mathematics – so all your arguements can be written in that language… but I wonder if Anaconda or OiM ever tried to understand it.

DrFlimmer, good calculations, though, but it is wasted on the likes of Anaconda. If you will recall, Tom Marking tried, on the other thread, to convince Anaconda that “Plasma Cosmology” is flawed, but Anaconda resorted to the usual obfuscation and continued to regurgitate the same diatribe like a sick parrot.

but Anaconda resorted to the usual obfuscation and continued to regurgitate the same diatribe like a sick parrot.

“This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It has gone to meet its maker and joined the bleeding choir invisible. Bereft of life it rests in peace. If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up daisies. This is an ex-parrot!”

It appears that the wackiness of a web-site is proportional to the font _ size and/or over use of colours in the text!

@ kuhnigget,

Did you know that an Ancient Greek (approx 1600 years old) joke has been recently translated, which shows great similarities to the Parrot sketch. It was written by the duo of Hierocles and Philagrius and was included in a compilation of 265 jokes titled Philogelos: The Laugh Addict. In the Greek version, a man complains to a slave-merchant that his new slave has died. The slave-merchant replies: “When he was with me, he never did any such thing!”